LeClerc 03 - Wild Savage Heart (5 page)

After she finished with the last piece of clothing and draped it over a bush to dry, Molly sighed with tired satisfaction. Pushing her hair from her damp forehead, she looked at the water that enticingly invited her to cool off in its silver depths.

She looked back toward camp and knew that she was out of sight of the two men working on the wagon. No longer resisting the siren call of the rippling current, Molly stripped to her drawers and chemise. She would have liked to remove all of her clothes but without the protection of walls she couldn’t overcome her innate modesty. She pulled the pins from her hair, shaking her head and letting the honey-colored mass fall to her waist.

Molly slipped into the stream until she was waistdeep. The water enfolded her in its promised coolness. She ducked beneath the surface and wished she had soap to wash her hair. It hadn’t felt or looked clean since they had left Charleston.

Surfacing, she wiped the moisture from her eyes. And froze. A water snake glided on the smooth surface not more than a foot from her. Its body was nearly as big around as her forearm and its mouth was open, showing her the cottony interior that gave it its name. Beady eyes looked unblinkingly into hers as it turned its head back and forth, its tongue tasting her scent on the wind. Inch-long fangs dangled threateningly.

Too terrified to move or to even scream for help, Molly stood and watched as it swayed hypnotically in the gently moving water. She tried desperately to call for help but she could only manage a soft squeak. But in her mind, Molly screamed repeatedly for Adam, or even Hawk, to come to her rescue.

Hawk strained to lift the wagon the fraction of an inch necessary for Adam to slip the wheel back into place. He had removed his shirt because of the heat, and his sleek skin shone shiny with sweat over his muscular chest and shoulders.

Adam slid the wheel into place as a scream of terror thundered through Hawk’s head, nearly driving him to his knees. Instinctively he reached for the rifle propped against a tree and took off at a dead run for the river.

Adam watched in bewildered amazement as his friend ran from the campsite. More out of curiosity than out of real concern, Adam followed him, wondering why Hawk had suddenly stopped working on the wagon, grabbed his rifle and ran.

Molly never took her eyes from the snake but was aware when Hawk arrived at the bank. The roar of the rifle deafened her hearing as the snake’s body exploded in front of her eyes. She watched as the current carried it downstream. And still she couldn’t move.

“You are safe now,” Hawk murmured quietly from the bank just as Adam reached his side. “Come on out.”

She couldn’t move. Molly tried to force her legs to carry her toward the promised safety of the voice on the bank but she was frozen by fear.

Adam understood the situation immediately and started to slip out of his boots to go into the river after his wife.

“No,” Hawk said softly.

“No?” Adam asked incredulously. “Are you crazy? She’s scared to death.”

“The danger is past. She has to learn to handle the repercussions of fear.”

“Damn it man! I’m sick to hell of your lessons! That is my wife and I’m not going to just stand here and watch her suffer another of your lessons. She is a woman, not a horse you want to break to saddle.” Hawk caught Adam’s arm in an unbreakable hold as the man stepped into the water. “Call her to you.”

“Let me go!” Adam snarled.

Hawk raised his head, every inch the savage Shawnee warrior. “Call her!”

Molly was unaware of the argument on the bank. She still saw the snake with its bared fangs directed at her. Never in her life had she felt such raw, uncontrollable terror.

“Molly … Molly mine, you’re safe.” He had to force his voice to be calm and soothing. The muscles in Adam’s arms bunched as his hands knotted into fists, he had never been closer to hating a person in his life as he did Hawk at that moment. “Come to me, sweetheart. You’re safe, I promise.”

She heard his voice, the sweet voice of the man she loved and she wanted more than anything in her life to walk to him. But her legs wouldn’t cooperate. “Molly …”

“Out of the water, Mrs. Royse,” Hawk barked brutally. “Unless it’s your intention to tease us with your damp body.” He watched as her back stiffened and he knew she was finally hearing past her terror.

“You are aware that wet cotton is no barrier, aren’t you? Then you must realize that we have an excellent view of your body.”

Adam turned and Hawk read the intention in the other man’s face. “Don’t do it,” Hawk warned softly. “You can try it later, but right now your wife needs you too much. Are you going to stand here on the bank trying to bash my brains in, to protect her honor while she stands in the middle of the river incapable of getting herself to the shore?”

“Let me go in after her, damn it!”

“No.” Hawk turned his attention back to Molly and once more began to taunt her. “Your body isn’t bad, but I’ve seen better. Of course, a free look is worth the effort.”

Abruptly, Molly lowered herself shoulder deep into the water and turned toward the bank. “Make him go away, Adam.”

Hawk looked at her and saw the terror still lingering in her honey gaze. He also knew she could now control that terror enough to walk out of the stream.

“Let her come to you,” he said quietly as he released Adam’s arm and turned to walk away. His steps were quiet as he listened to the sounds of Molly leaving the stream.

“Molly, oh Molly mine,” Adam whispered as he gathered her damp body against him.

Molly started to shake as reaction set in. Tears coursed down her cheeks as she clutched the security of Adam’s embrace.

“I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!” she mumbled, burying her face in Adam’s sweaty shirt.

Lifting her into his arms, Adam carried her away from the water and sat down beneath a tree. He cradled her against him, lightly stroking her wet hair. He, too, felt a killing fury against the man he had called friend. At this point he was willing to continue their journey without Nathan Morning Hawk’s assistance.

“It was so hot,” Molly said, her voice picking up volume as fear grabbed her in its clutches again. “I wanted to take a bath, to feel clean. The snake was there and I couldn’t move, I couldn’t scream.”

Hawk had waited in a protected spot behind a tree to see that she was truly all right. His lungs felt as if they would explode as he forgot to exhale.

He had heard her scream. It had been nearly painful in its intensity, the terror had vibrated through his entire body.

She had screamed, he told himself. He had heard it.

Quietly, so that they didn’t overhear him, Hawk moved away from the tree. He followed the river downstream, his thoughts overshadowing everything else.

Maybe it had been a screeching noise made as the wheel finally slipped into place on the wagon. Perhaps it had been a bird, shrieking as it flew overhead. It could have been purely coincidence that he had mistaken the sound for a scream and had rushed to the river and found the snake threatening Molly.

He stopped walking and stood staring at the gently rippling water. His thoughts ran chaotically through his mind. It had to have been a noise made by something that had attracted his attention. Since Molly hadn’t been in camp it had been natural to assume that the noise had come from her and even more natural for him to grab his rifle and run to the river.

Why, then, if the noise was caused by something else, had the sound thundered through his head? And why had Adam not heard it?

Why had his knees nearly buckled as a terror unlike anything he’d ever known filled his body?

Something floating in the water caught his attention. Hawk stared at the thing that resembled a floating log. It was the remainder of the snake’s body. A shiver travelled through his body, much like one caused by remembered fear.

She had screamed, he reassured himself. He knew she had, because he had heard her.

If it wasn’t her scream he had heard then what was it?

He tried to shake off the feeling of something waiting just out of sight around the next bend in the trail. She had screamed, he told himself. He knew she had. In her terror she just hadn’t realized that she had screamed and it had been loud enough for him to hear back at camp.

She had to have screamed. After all, he had heard her.

Hadn’t he?

CHAPTER THREE

Molly refused Adam’s offer to carry her back to camp. After sliding her dress on over her wet underwear and pulling on her shoes she clutched his hand tightly. Commanding her quivering legs to support her weight, she concentrated on taking each step as her eyes jumped from place to place, searching for snakes on the ground, under bushes or in the trees.

When they reached camp Adam motioned to a wooden box and Molly gratefully sank down on its hard surface. After a quick search through his wife’s things, Adam found her brush and comb. He returned to her and began to comb the snarls from her long hair. The motions were soothing to both of them and the tension that still held them in its grip slowly loosened its bonds.

In his usual silent way of walking, Hawk entered the camp unnoticed and stood for long minutes watching the scene. He could understand Adam’s desire to pamper Molly, since he felt an almost overpowering need to do the same thing. But Hawk knew that the treatment would worsen the condition rather than improve it. There is no place in the wilderness for debilitating terror, no matter what the reason. Someone’s life might depend on quick action, and time can’t be wasted by long minutes of fear.

“We need to finish with that wheel.” His voice broke through the stillness, jarring both Adam and Molly.

The transition is complete, Molly thought to herself as she looked at Hawk. His raven’s-wing hair glistened in the sun. His hair was held back by a band around his forehead and it accentuated his piercing black eyes. She had only guessed at his strength before, but now his shirtless body screamed the message. Copper skin stretched sleekly over wide shoulders and a massive chest that rippled with flawlessly defined muscles. Fringed buckskin pants clung low to his hips, disappearing into fringed, beaded knee-high moccasins. He clutched a rifle in his right hand and even in his relaxed stance she had an impression of barely curbed violence, controlled only because it was his choice, not because of some civilized notion of correct behavior.

All trace of the white man was gone. Molly knew he was now unremittingly a Shawnee warrior.

Her back straightened and her chin rose as Adam’s hands rested on her shoulders, lightly stroking the sides of her neck.

“We need to talk first,” Adam replied quietly.

Hawk nodded his head in agreement and laid the rifle within reach on a barrel. He leaned his shoulder against a tree, his arms folded over his chest. The bark was rough against his naked skin, reminding him that he needed to put his shirt back on.

“So talk.”

“What you did back there,” he nodded toward the river, keeping both hands on Molly’s shoulders, “it was cruel.”

“Killing the snake?” Hawk asked skeptically.

“Damn it man, be serious! Molly was terrified and you wouldn’t let me go to her. You forced me to stay on the bank while she stood waist-deep in the water and couldn’t move.”

“She has to learn to control her fear.”

“Not that way, she doesn’t!” Rage clogged his throat when he remembered the helplessness that had overwhelmed him because Hawk wouldn’t let him go to her. “That was just plain cruel. Did you enjoy watching her suffer?”

Hawk’s hands fell to his sides as he moved away from the tree. His black eyes narrowed and danger radiated from him.

“Is she going to be so controlled by her fears that it will affect her future? What if someday she walks into the cabin and sees a snake curled up in the cradle with her babe? Is she going to stand there in terror while it sinks its fangs into her child? Is she going to watch her babe die because she’s too frightened to go to its aid?

“Or maybe one day while you’re chopping wood the ax slips and becomes imbedded in your leg. That’s not usually a fatal wound, but it would be if she were too afraid to help you.” His voice became mocking, “you’d bleed to death before her eyes because she’s scared.”

His gaze lowered to Molly and he saw the hate she now felt for him … but also her grudging acceptance of his words. “There is plenty of time later to give in to your terror. But while it’s happening, while your action could be the difference between life and death, you have no choice but to remain in control.

“Don’t let me stop you from falling apart and having a good cry … when it’s over!

“If teaching you that lesson is cruel,” he said, speaking directly to Molly, “then yes, I enjoyed the cruelty. That cruelty may someday save a life. Who knows, it might even be mine!”

As regally as any blue-blooded royal, Molly stood up from the packing box. Her gaze didn’t waver as she stared at the man across from her. “You will forgive me, I’m sure, if at this time I am unable to extend my gratitude to you for your lesson, Mr. Hawk. I have never before had a reason to experience true terror as I did today. It was … different.”

Hawk felt his approval of her climb several notches further as she walked gracefully toward the back of the wagon. She stopped and turned toward him again. “Perhaps, someday, I shall be grateful for today. I hope not. I would rather never again experience such debilitating fright. However, should it happen, I will do my utmost to express my appreciation at that time.”