Hostage Heart (5 page)

He must be delirious. He must be dying. Floating in and out of consciousness, he stared at her lithe, golden form. It was she, he thought groggily, his golden cougar…the woman in the white nightgown. Only this time there were no clothes to mar the tall, sensual lines of her form. The sun brought a golden splendor to her skin. He watched, mesmerized, as the blue-black waterfall of her hair flowed back and forth like a living being across her back as she moved. His gaze followed the swanlike curve of her throat as she raised her head and partly turned toward him. Her small, perfectly formed breasts were high and pink-tipped. It was her legs, Matt thought torridly, that were her best feature, the long, rounded thighs made firm by riding, he guessed.

He must be dying. She was too beautiful, an apparition from heaven. An angel…He had no strength left and closed his eyes. But not before her profile was branded into his feverish memory. Her hair was parted in the center of her scalp, her brow broad and smooth. Her nose flared into delicate nostrils that reminded him of a fine, blooded racing horse. He had felt heat stir in his loins as he savored that mouth of hers: full, cherry-colored lips, ripe with vulnerability, begging to be worshipped by the right man. Her chin was stubborn, filling out her heart-shaped face. She must be an angel, Matt thought deliriously, one of God’s finest handiworks. No woman he’d seen in his twenty-six years of life could compete with her sculpted beauty. A slight smile tugged at his mouth, as he drifted toward unconsciousness. He recalled his mother reading aloud tales about Helen of Troy, whose beauty had launched a thousand ships. Well, he had just seen her.

After fastening her Levi’s, Lark shrugged into a long-sleeved blue calico shirt that reached below her hips, then captured the shirt with a wide leather belt. A cotton headband would keep her long hair out of her face. She sat down on the rocker and pulled on her leather knee-high
kabun
boots, absently stuffing the pant legs down into them.

Feeling refreshed and clean, Lark glanced over at Matt as she rose. Following an urge, she leaned down, barely touching his brow. “Sleep in peace, my bear,” she whispered, then went to fetch Ny-Oden.

She helped the aged shaman into the house and settled him in the rocking chair, then went to the kitchen to make up a new batch of the special poultice. Humming softly, she returned with a bowl and a fresh dressing for Matt’s leg.

“He looks better this morning,” Ny-Oden commented approvingly.

Lark set the bowl on the stand and removed the blanket from Matt’s wounded leg. “Thank you, Grandfather. Look, the flesh is not as angry.”

Ny-Oden studied the wound intently. “There is no more blood. That is good. He has also slept soundly and the fever is lower.”

Taking her slender knife, Lark cut through the bandages. “I feel more rested myself, as if a great load has been taken off my shoulders,” she admitted. Matt groaned as she worked to remove the dressing. “He awakens,” she whispered to the shaman.

“It is time,” he agreed.

Lark sat facing Matt as she continued to soak the dressing until she was sure it could be peeled back with a minimum of pain to him. She saw his lashes flutter, and her heart beat a little faster. What would he do when he found out that he was with Apaches and not his own kind? Trying to steel herself for any eventuality, she lifted the knife to carefully cut away the dressing from the wound.

Fire jagged up Matt’s thigh into his hip and gut. A harsh sound worked its way up his throat, jerking him out of his delirious state. His eyes flew open and he automatically recoiled. No! He was seeing things again! That face. It was she. But why the hell was she wearing Apache clothes? Confused, he stared at her for several taut seconds, fevered memories of his family’s murder mixing with the present. Reacting instinctively, he knocked the knife out of her hand. The blade sailed harmlessly through the air, landing on the floor. Matt tried to pull away and defend himself. He was back at the burning ranch house, turning Katie over, watching the blood stain her lavender dress where an arrow had penetrated her abdomen.

“Get away from me, you filthy Apache squaw!” he snarled.

Lark leaped to her feet with a cry of shock. She watched his well-shaped mouth curl back, exposing even, white teeth. Terror and confusion flashed from his hawklike gray eyes, eyes that burned with an icy fury. She held out her hands in a soothing gesture and opened her mouth to calm him, but he spoke first.

“Stay away!” More memories assailed Matt. He remembered the agony of lifting his six-year-old daughter gently into his arms. An arrow had struck her through the heart.

Lark flinched from his anguished cry. Why had she expected any reaction other than hatred from him? Why had her blind and foolish heart allowed her to believe that Matt Kincaid was any different from other whites? Swallowing against her constricted throat, Lark raised her chin and fearlessly met his glare.

“I am Lark Gallagher and you’re here at our ranch, near Prescott. You’re safe here, Mr. Kincaid.”

Matt struggled to sit up, only to find he lacked the strength to do so. His helplessness enraged him. His gaze flicked to the wrinkled, silver-haired Apache in the rocker. “This isn’t making sense,” he rasped. “No Injun owns a ranch. You’re lying. You’re all supposed to be on reservations.” Looking down, Matt realized he was naked except for the blankets drawn over him. Where the hell was his gun?

“Please, calm yourself. We mean you no harm,” Lark begged. “You’ve been unconscious over a day since finding your way to my father’s ranch.”

“Who’s your father?”

“His name was Roarke Gallagher.”

Matt heard the pain in her voice and saw the sudden luminosity in her eyes. His head was spinning with pain and fever. “I don’t understand. This is a house. Injuns live in wickiups.”

Wrestling with her grief, Lark stood uncertainly, holding his wild-looking glare. The fever still had him in its grip; he wasn’t coherent. Keeping her voice low and soothing, she said, “My father was from Ireland, Mr. Kincaid. My mother was Apache. They owned this ranch until—Well, they’re dead now and I’m the owner. You rode in yesterday, remember? You leaped from behind a beam in the barn and wrestled me to the ground.”

No, dammit, he didn’t remember! Gasping for breath, Matt lay back, staring up at the wood ceiling. Sweat popped out on his brow and trickled in tiny rivulets down the sides of his face, making his skin itch. “I don’t believe you,” he snarled, closing his eyes. It couldn’t be! Apaches couldn’t have found him! Was she part of Ga’n’s bloodthirsty gang?

Lark twisted around, looking to Ny-Oden for counsel. The shaman shook his head. “Repack his wound, daughter,” he told her in Apache. “He is a man possessed of devils. We must give him yarrow to drive the fever spirits from him.”

When he heard them speaking in Apache, Matt jerked his eyes open. As she reached forward to touch his leg, he mustered all of his draining strength and lunged toward her outstretched hand. He gripped her wrist cruelly, feeling her soft flesh grind against her slender bones.

“Don’t touch me,” he ordered through clenched teeth.

A cry erupted from Lark. His bruising strength made her wince. She tensed and held still, not resisting him. His breath was coming in ragged gasps, and she felt the hotness of his flesh against her skin. In her heart, she forgave his violence and cruel words because he was out of his mind with fever. But he must gain control of himself. “You’re hurting me,” she whispered in a strained voice. “I’ve done nothing to deserve this from you. I’m only trying to save your life.”

His fingers tingled against her cool silken flesh. Matt saw tears gather in her eyes and immediately felt contrite, having never raised a hand against any woman in his life. Still, her Apache garb aroused his hatred. With disgust, he shoved her hand away and sank back down on the bed. Making a monumental effort, he gathered what was left of his strength and demanded, “Get out of here and never touch me again. I hate your kind. I hate all of you. You cold-blooded, killing bastards.”

A shaft of anguish lanced Lark’s heart as his hate-filled words smashed against her. She watched as Matt Kincaid lost consciousness, breathing hard, his chest rising and falling sharply with exertion. Her wrist throbbed with pain and already bluish-purple bruises were forming where he had held her. He had meant to hurt her. Bowing her head, Lark fought against the raw disappointment.

“I—I thought he would be different, Grandfather,” she said softly.

“Does a cougar run every time she sees a bear?”

Lark swallowed her pain, determined to put on a brave face for the shaman. “I am the cougar and he is the bear?”

“Yes.”

She managed a short, nervous laugh. “No cougar would be foolhardy enough to engage a bear in a fight.”

Ny-Oden smiled slyly. “In my years, I’ve seen a cougar steal meat from a bear. It can be done, daughter.”

“Then you have more faith in me than I do, Grandfather. You heard the hate in his voice.” She held up her wrist. “He hates us so badly that he would punish us physically. I’m sorry, I do not have the emotional strength that the cougar has to challenge that bear.”

“Play the patient cougar, my daughter, and you will perhaps learn why Matt Kincaid hates the People so much. He is possessed by fever. He may not be so filled with hatred once you drain the poison from his body. Have patience.”

An hour later, Sheriff Cole from Prescott arrived. He was a lanky man of thirty-five with a prematurely gray mustache that drooped across the corners of his thin mouth. Lark met him out in the dusty yard of the ranch. His watery blue eyes narrowed as he drew his bay gelding to a stop.

“You Gallagher’s young’un?” he demanded in a gruff voice.

Stiffening at his poor manners, Lark nodded. “I’m his daughter.”

Cole hitched one arm up on the saddle horn and gave her a lazy look. “Came out to tell ya about yore pa’s death.”

Swallowing against the sudden deluge of emotions, Lark tried to keep her voice steady. “What did you find out, Sheriff? Who killed my father?”

“Pure and simple, girl. That thievin’ renegade Ga’n nailed yore pa in the back.”

Lark’s eyes went wide. “Ga’n killed my father?”

“Yep.”

“That’s impossible!”

Cole scowled, twisting one end of his mustache. “That’s what my report will read.”

“But Ga’n would never harm my father or anyone in my family.”

Cole straightened in the saddle. “Ga’n kills anything that moves on two legs. Of course, you being a breed, he might respect that,” he added with a sneer. “But that left yore pa wide open to a bushwhack by that bastard.”

Lark tried to calm herself. She explained why Ga’n would never harm Roarke Gallagher. Cole shrugged. “Look, girl, I did my job. I came out here, told ya what I figured out happened. The case is closed.” He reined his horse around, ready to leave.

“Wait!” Lark grabbed the reins, jerking the horse to a halt. She was breathing hard, unable to control her grief and anger. “You can’t do this! Ga’n didn’t kill my father! I know he didn’t!” Her anger spilled over. “Bo Shanks would do something like this! He’s Jud Cameron’s hired gun. Everyone knows that. You must find out who really did it.”

With a hiss, Cole jerked the reins out of her hand. “Mind yore business, girl. You ain’t the sheriff here, I am. Now, I’ve done all the investigatin’ I’m gonna do.”

“But—”

“No buts, breed. Mind yore manners and know yore place.” His eyes drilled into her distraught features. “My report stands. And that’s how it’s gonna be filed. You want justice, you go to those Injuns you prefer over us and have them hunt down that renegade.”

Fighting back her tears, Lark remained standing in the yard while Cole’s slouched figure rode out of the yard and disappeared over the hill. Ga’n hadn’t killed her father. So who was Cole covering up for? She rubbed her aching brow, simmering with rage.

The rest of the morning rushed by for Lark. Before her father’s death, her duties had included overseeing the broodmares and two stallions and helping with the mustang hunts. Now, she also had to deal with the ranch families, who came to her for job assignments, or with grievances and problems, or who just needed someone to confide in. That morning a broodmare foaled a spindly-legged carbon copy of Kentucky and some of the depression lifted from Lark’s shoulders. The fuzzy chestnut foal had four white stockings and a flaxen mane and tail. In about three years he would make a showy gelding for the cavalry.

Two emissaries from Fort Whipple, located ten miles north of Prescott, came to the ranch late that afternoon. Lark recognized Captain Frank Herter, but not the younger officer with him. Frank had been a friend of the family for the last ten years, ever since he’d been assigned to the Army post which had been established to protect Prescott and the silver-rich country around it. Herter was in his early thirties, with closely cropped black hair, and there was always a twinkle in his brown eyes. Small and wiry, he reminded Lark of a feisty badger. Fortunately his personality was far more pleasant. She recalled the times when she was a little girl and Frank had brought her small gifts of peppermint candy and a stuffed doll that she had loved with all her heart. As she had blossomed into a woman, he had gifted her with flowery words of praise for her beauty, making her feel wonderful.

Lark raised her hand in greeting as Frank neared, and his dark, sunburned features crinkled into a smile. There was a lean quality to his face, with its high cheekbones and intense gaze. Although he had always been friendly to her, Lark also knew of his high reputation among the Apache, who respected his courage and integrity. The Apache gave a wide berth to any soldiers Herter commanded. He was like a badger in a fight to the finish: dangerous and competent.

Herter tipped his dusty white hat to Lark and pulled his tired mount to a halt. “Miss Lark, I just heard about your father’s death. I’m sorry as hell it happened. Is there anything I can do?”

“No, thank you, Frank.” She managed a slight smile, watching as he and the officer with him dismounted.

Climbing up on the porch to get out of the bright sunlight, Frank regarded her intently for a long moment. “You’re lookin’ peaked, purty lady. What’d that sidewinder of a sheriff have to say about Roarke’s murder?”