Maverick Heart (14 page)

“You mean right now?”

“I mean right now.”

He released her, inched his way over to the flap of hide that covered the entrance to the tipi, and nudged it open with his tied hands. A dog lying across the entrance instantly raised its head and growled. Rand stuck his head out, and the dog barked once.

Rand let the flap drop closed. “We’re not going out that way without waking up the whole village.”

“There isn’t anything in here we could use to slit the tipi and go out the other side, either,”
Freddy said. “I looked when they first put me in here.”

“At least we can untie each other,” Rand said.

“I doubt it. This rawhide was wet when they tied me up. When it dried, it tightened. I don’t think there’s any way to get it off except to cut it.” Freddy was unable to stifle a loud yawn.

“You’re tired.”

“I thought I was too terrified to be sleepy, but I guess not,” Freddy conceded with a rueful laugh.

“We can talk just as well lying down,” Rand said as he rejoined her and eased the two of them backward. He hissed in pain as his shoulder made contact with the ground.

“Are you all right?”

“It only hurts when I move,” he said with a snort that ended in a hiss of pain as he slid his arms over her head.

Freddy turned on her side in Rand’s embrace and snuggled her head against his good shoulder. The hair on his chest tickled her nose. She drew back, smoothed the hair flat with her hand, then laid her cheek on her hand. She could feel his heart thudding slowly and steadily. “I have a confession to make, Rand.”

“Uh-oh. What have you done now? Made a bet with Hawk that we can get free before morning?”

“This is serious.”

“I’m sorry. What is it?”

“Do you remember the day you proposed to me?”

“How could I forget it? My knees were knocking,
my palms were sweaty, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to get two words past the knot in my throat.”

“I mean, do you remember how my parents were so opposed to our engagement?” She put an open palm against his cheek, so she could judge his reactions in the dark. She felt the spasm as his teeth clenched.

“I remember.”

“When you first mentioned marriage, I had every intention of refusing you. But I don’t like being told what to do by anybody, especially my parents. Naturally, when they said no to your proposal, I said yes.”

“I see.”

“Do you, Rand?” She traced his mouth and found his lips flattened. He understood enough to be angry.

“When were you planning to tell me all this?”

She made a feeble attempt to laugh. “Would you believe I tried a dozen times and couldn’t get the words out? I never wanted to hurt you, Rand. Our engagement, this trip, was like a snowball that kept getting bigger and bigger and rolling faster and faster out of control. Before I knew it I was on a ship bound for America. Then I was on a train headed west. Then I found myself on a riverboat, then another train. Finally, I was on horseback headed for a ranch in the middle of nowhere. I just … never found the right moment to speak.”

“But you always intended to return home to
your parents eventually, unbroached and unmarried?”

“Yes.”

“You realize that’s impossible now. You have no choice except to marry me as soon as we get back to civilization. If we get back,” he muttered.

“How would anyone in England ever find out about us spending the night together unchaperoned?”

“Do you dislike me so much, Freddy, that you’d welcome a scandal rather than marry me?”

“Oh, Rand, I like you very much. In fact, I always liked you the best of all my suitors. I’m just not ready to get married yet.”

“It’s too late to back out now, Freddy.”

“It’s never too late to back out, Rand.”

He laughed. “I can see the more insistent I become, the stronger your refusals will be. At least I know how your mind works. All right, Freddy. I won’t force you to marry me—assuming, of course, that we both live through this.

“But I asked you to be my wife because I’m very much in love with you. Surely you won’t mind if I use this time we have together to see if I can make you fall a little in love with me.”

“Rand, I—”

She wasn’t expecting the kiss. Even if she had suspected it was coming, she couldn’t have imagined the effect it would have on her. After all, she had already kissed Rand twice, and nothing very momentous had happened.

This time, her toes curled right up in her half-boots.

When he released her mouth, she stared, wide-eyed, at the shadow where his face should be. She reached up to touch her lips. They still tingled. It had to be the dire situation … or pity … or something.

“Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?”

“Countless times,” she retorted, still off-balance from the searing kiss.

His fingers threaded through her hair. “Your hair is incredibly soft and silky.”

“Rand, I don’t think—”

“Don’t think,” he said in a husky voice. “Just let yourself feel.”

His hands tangled in her hair, and he used his hold to draw her mouth toward his. She opened her mouth in protest, and his lips captured hers. The feelings were as extraordinary as they were unfamiliar.

First the utter softness of his lips, the heat of his mouth on hers, the rough wetness of his tongue as it sought entry. She kept her lips pressed together, but oh, she was tempted to let him in.

He nibbled at her lips with teeth and tongue until they were soft and puffy and unbelievably sensitive. For the first time in her life she felt the hard length of an aroused male against her belly. His bound hands pressed against the small of her back, urging her against him.

“Feel how I want you, how I need you,” he crooned.

Freddy panicked and shoved at Rand’s bare chest with her bound hands. “Let me go! Please. Stop, Rand. This is wrong. This is crazy. This shouldn’t be happening!”

He released the pressure on her spine immediately but did nothing to take his arms from around her. “Be still, Freddy. You’re hurting my shoulder. Lie still.”

She lay panting in his arms, frightened as a fox that can hear the hounds baying. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I don’t understand.”

“What is it you don’t understand?” Rand asked in a quiet voice.

“This isn’t supposed to happen. I don’t love you. How can this be happening?”

“Shh. Be still. I won’t kiss you again. Relax and go to sleep. You’re safe with me.”

Rand soothed her with quiet words until she settled in his arms. She was not really relaxed, but at least she was no longer trying to escape him.

Rand had enough sexual experience to know that an innocent could be seduced even when there were no emotional ties to bind them. It had happened to him the first time. He had no reason to doubt the same principle would apply to a woman. Perhaps it had been unfair to use his knowledge on Freddy. But he had no intention of playing fair if it meant there was the least chance he would lose her.

He had loved her for a long time, which was saying a lot when she was seventeen and he was twenty-one. Frankly, he had been amazed when
she agreed to marry him. It hadn’t taken him long to realize she had doubts.

He had seen her watching him during the long journey across the ocean with her lower lip caught in her teeth. He had listened to enough aborted “Rand, I need to …” and “Rand, I have to …” declarations to suspect what she was trying to say. He had always managed to divert her so she hadn’t been able to make her awful confession.

Until tonight.

He had finally let her speak because he knew, even if she did not, that there was no turning back. He would be her husband. She would be his wife. But his work was cut out for him. Quite simply, he wanted her to love him before they stood in front of a vicar and said the vows that would bind them together for life.

They were both nearly asleep when a sound at the entrance to the tipi brought them wide awake. Rand lifted his arms from around Freddy and rose, prepared to defend her, if necessary.

“Who’s there?” Freddy said.

“Do not be afraid,” a woman’s voice whispered in the darkness. “It is only Willow. I tended the wound of the white man.”

When she entered the tipi, Willow carried a torch. She moved to the center of the tipi where a ring of stones held kindling. Moments later the fire was lit. She extinguished the torch and sat down across the fire from them.

At first, all the Sioux had looked the same to Freddy, with their straight black hair and dark
brown eyes. As she stared at Willow, she noticed individual features that made her distinctive. An overlapping eyetooth. An especially wide mouth. A bump on the bridge of her nose. Eyes that were wide-set with short, straight brows. And she was even shorter than Freddy, who was of less than average height.

Rand and Freddy exchanged worried glances.
Why had she come? What did she want?

“How is it you speak English?” Freddy asked.

“Hawk taught me the words.”

Willow traced the beaded design on her moccasin. Silence descended again.

“Did you have something you wanted to say to us?” Freddy asked, unable to bear the building tension.

Rand frowned at Freddy’s impatience.

Willow answered her question. “I wish to help you escape.”

Freddy gasped and turned a hopeful look toward Rand.

“Why would you do that?” Rand asked, less willing to believe such good fortune could fall into their laps.

“Because Hawk chooses this woman to be his wife,” she said with a scornful jerk of her head in Freddy’s direction. “Once she is gone, he will see that I am the woman—the only woman—who was meant to share his pallet.”

“You want to marry Hawk yourself?” Freddy asked.

“We are husband and wife already,” Willow said.

“Then why does he want me? He can’t have two wives,” Freddy protested. “It’s against the law.”

“It is not against our law,” Willow said.

“Cut us free, and we’ll be on our way,” Freddy said, holding out her bound hands.

“Wait a minute,” Rand said. “Maybe this is some kind of trap.”

“We can’t be more trapped than we already are,” Freddy pointed out.

“I guess you’re right,” Rand conceded. He turned to Willow and said, “What do you want us to do?”

“I have taken away the dog that guarded you. I will lead you through the camp to ponies I have waiting to carry you away from here.”

“We don’t know where we are,” Freddy said. “How will we know which way to go?”

“The white man’s fort is to the south. That is all I can tell you.”

“Won’t Hawk be angry with you when he finds out what you’ve done?” Rand asked.

Willow shrugged. “Perhaps. But the white woman will be gone.”

“What if Hawk comes after us?” Freddy asked.

“You may be certain he will come after you, as soon as he discovers you are gone,” Willow said. “That is why you must ride like the wind. Do not stop until you reach the safety of the fort.”

“Are we that close to the fort?” Rand asked, surprised.

Willow smiled. “Hawk is very smart. And very brave. It pleases him to do what he does under the noses of the soldiers, who believe him to be far away in the hills to the north. Now, come with me.”

Rand held out his bound hands. “You’ll have to cut us free first. And I’ll need a shirt to replace the one you took.”

Willow crossed to a parfleche near the edge of the tipi and pulled out a beaded buckskin shirt. She thrust it at Rand, who grabbed it between numbed fingers. Then she pulled a knife from a sheath tied by a thong to the waist of her buckskin dress.

Rand felt the coolness of the metal against his flesh and felt the pressure of it against his leather boots. Moments later he experienced a series of excruciating pinpricks as blood flowed into his numbed hands and feet.

“Oh, Rand, it hurts!” Freddy said as she carefully opened and closed her hands after Willow cut her bonds. She reached down to rub her calves. “I’m not sure my legs will support me.”

Rand gritted his teeth as he lifted his arms to slip the shirt down over his head. Fortunately the agony was over quickly. The buckskin was warm, and heavier than the fine lawn shirt he was used to wearing. He ran his fingers over the colorful beaded design. “Did you make this?” he asked Willow.

She nodded.

“It’s beautiful.” He shook his hands as painful
pinpricks gave warning that blood was circulating once more.

Willow reached for Rand’s hands and began to massage them. “It will not take long before the feeling returns.” She eyed Freddy and asked, “Is this your man?”

“Yes,” Rand answered for her.

Freddy shot him an annoyed look, but she didn’t contradict him. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t let her answer for herself, except he didn’t want to hear her deny again that she belonged to him. The matter was settled in his mind. The vows might as well have been said. As far as he was concerned, they were husband and wife.

He staggered to his feet and leaned on Willow until his wobbly legs would support him. When he was standing on his own, he turned and held out his hands to Freddy and pulled her onto her feet.

“Can you walk?” he asked her.

“I can try.”

Rand winced at the pain when he took his first steps and saw from the pinched look around Freddy’s mouth that she wasn’t in much better shape. He admired her fortitude. Most English ladies he knew would already have collapsed. Not his Freddy.

“Follow me,” Willow said. She left the tipi without waiting to see if they followed.

Holding each other upright, Freddy and Rand hobbled their way after her through the sleeping village, using the half moon and a star-filled sky for light. As Willow had promised, the dog that had
slept in front of the tipi was absent, and they didn’t encounter any more animals. Two Roman-nosed, sway-backed Indian ponies were waiting along the edge of a stream, not many yards from the nearest tipi. Neither pony was saddled, and each had only a halter arrangement instead of a bridle with a sturdy metal bit.

“Where are our horses?” Freddy asked.

“Hawk gave them to the bravest of the men who raided with him,” she said.

Rand and Freddy exchanged an annoyed look before he boosted her onto the nearest sorry-looking pony and handed her the reins. She could feel the body heat of the animal through the thin layer of separation provided by her undergarments.