Runaway (21 page)

Don’t think about it
, she told herself sternly, and she found a cotton dress in a soft flowered pink print. With her mind made up she dressed quickly, and was brushing out the length of her hair to pin it again when Jarrett reappeared in the room. He didn’t knock, he just stepped inside. She hadn’t even heard him come and hadn’t known that he was there until she saw him scowling at her from the mirror’s reflection. Her brush wavered. She was still here—she hadn’t run—but it seemed she was an errant wife once again. He had come for her, and she was not ready, and the sight of her brushing out her hair and clad in one of Lisa’s gowns must have been very irritating.

She whipped the length of her hair quickly into a knot and pinned it securely, then spun around. “Is it time to leave?” she asked icily. As he watched her with his glittering black stare, she felt a swift stab of pain once again.
What had she done? What had
they
done? Did the dusky-skinned beauty below the stairs care that he had taken a new wife? Would it matter to Sheila in the night what
commitments
had been made?

Did it matter to Jarrett?

“Yes. Shall we?” He turned to leave, expecting her to follow.

She remained stubbornly still. “What about our things?” she asked.

“The trunks will be on the Magda before we are,” he assured her, turning back. “Come on, we must leave.”

But she still didn’t move. “I want you to know that I am doing this under protest.”

“Amazingly, I am aware of that fact,” he murmured.

“It’s not just the situation,” she told him. “The uprising—the danger of being slaughtered in our beds. We should have had—some time. Here. With others. With—with dressmakers. I have only another woman’s belongings—”

She broke off as he hiked up an arched brow. “Demanding little runaway, aren’t you?” he inquired softly.

She stood tall and straight and silent for a moment, then said softly, “I wouldn’t dream of demanding a thing, not when you make the extent of my debt to you so painfully clear. Yet it can’t make you happy to see me in your wife’s clothing.”

“There is little making me happy at this moment,” he assured her. “May we please leave?”

Perhaps Tara had wanted him to tell her she was his wife now. He didn’t. It seemed he only mentioned the fact to remind her that she was bound to follow his dictates.

She sailed by him, pausing when she was just a step ahead of him. “We’re in such a hurry now. It’s a pity you didn’t know that night when you were playing poker that so much was happening here.”

“As it turned out,” he said smoothly behind her, “it was rather fortunate, wasn’t it? I never would have reached home so quickly had I not been escaping New Orleans with you. Keep walking, Tara.”

She clenched her fingers into fists and started walking.
He made a derisive sound, and she spun around, finding those black eyes shooting into her like Stygian blades.

“I had not imagined that you would prove to be so—timid.”

“I am not, McKenzie. I am simply sensible.”

“I ask you again, have I failed you yet?”

“Perhaps you should explain your fantastic confidence in regard to the savages.”

“Perhaps you should explain why you are now beholden to live with me among them?” he suggested smoothly.

She swung around again, seething. Trust him—with the truth!—when they were all but bitter enemies?

She kept walking, and this time she didn’t stop until she had reached the foot of the stairs, where Mrs. Conolly was waiting to say her farewells and hug Tara and welcome her to the territory once again.

Robert met them at the door to the tavern, winking quickly, lifting her spirits. It seemed that he would be accompanying them as well. Jarrett didn’t have anything further to say to her, and he seemed to prefer that she walk ahead of him, idly conversing with Robert as they made their way back to the Magda. But even as she exchanged meaningless pleasantries with Robert, she could feel Jarrett behind her. Feel his eyes, his heat.

His disappointment.

Where had he slept last night?

She was glad to see Josh and Nancy waiting on the dock. Tara had barely gotten to know Nancy the night before, but she had discovered a genuine warmth within the pretty young woman, and she already felt as if she were being torn away from a friend.

“It was so wonderful to meet you!” Nancy assured her, coming forward to give Tara a hug even as Josh called out to Jarrett, “She’s well loaded down with the best we
could do on such short notice. I think you’ll find all that you need for the time coming.”

Tara barely heard the two men. She was looking at the tawdry little place called Tampa and thinking that it suddenly seemed like the greatest of cities. She didn’t want to leave.

“It was wonderful to meet you,” she assured Nancy. She asked herself what would happen if she went hysterical on the dock and started to scream and swear that she simply would not be massacred by Indians.

She would probably be massacred by Jarrett, then and there.

She didn’t scream. She tried to smile as Nancy told her that she had filled crates with what fabrics and patterns she’d had in the store and sent new corsets, petticoats, pantalettes, and all that she could find. “Jarrett said that you left New Orleans rather quickly and that your baggage was left behind. I think you’ll be pleased. Jarrett’s laundress, Cota, is also an exceptional seamstress if you don’t sew.”

“I do sew,” Tara murmured simply. She realized that Nancy must assume she had come from an important, well-to-do family. She didn’t want to explain exactly why she was so adept with a needle and thread.

“God bless you, then! I’m delighted for Jarrett’s sake that you’re with him, and I’ll pray for you! Of course, he will keep you safe, he must simply adore you, we are still so very stunned that he actually married—oh, dear, forgive me, I do wander on!”

Not nearly enough!
Tara thought with an inward groan, but Nancy was already rushing on again. “When I can, I’ll visit. And you’ll come back. It’s only two days by river and not much longer by horseback or wagon. We’re really not so very far!”

“Nancy.” Jarrett touched the vivacious brunette on
the shoulder. She kissed his cheek, and he held her warmly for a moment.

“God keep you, Jarrett. We love you.”

“You too,” he told her affectionately. He shook hands with Josh, and Robert said his farewells to Nancy and Josh as well. With Jarrett’s hand at her back Tara boarded the Magda again, turning to look at the shore and fighting the temptation to flee for what now seemed familiar and warm.

She wasn’t going anywhere. He remained at her back while his crew ran about, easing the ship from the dock. She could feel his strong hands set lightly upon her hips.

“My congratulations, my love,” he whispered softly at her ear.

“On what?” she murmured dully.

“Your chin was high—and you didn’t dive into the river.”

“The river’s still there.”

“Ah, yes, but we are going farther and farther away from civilization.”

She didn’t reply but heard his soft groan of exasperation as she shivered despite herself.

Angered and defensive, Tara cried and started to lash out at him again. “How can you not see—” she began.

“And how can you give me no faith whatsoever, when I’ve yet to betray you, despite the fact that you are all too willing to run again?”

“This is entirely different,” she tried.

“No, it is not!” he snapped, and suddenly he was gone, calling out an order to Leo, leaving her at the rail and leaping with a seaman’s sure agility to the helm.

She could still see Nancy and Josh, waving good-bye.

And just beyond Nancy and Josh and some of the other civilians who lined the shore, she could see the blond man in the crisp military attire and broad-rimmed
hat who had stopped Jarrett yesterday: the man who had tried to have him take a commission.

The man saw her. He lifted his hat and bowed gravely. Tara hesitated, then lifted a hand and waved good-bye.

Slowly, those on the shore began to disappear, and as they headed along the river, civilization vanished as well.

Gradually the foliage became more and more dense. And indeed, it seemed that she was sailing into a savage land.

The going was much slower by river than it had been on the open sea, but Tara stood by the ship’s rail for hours as the morning passed by, watching the shoreline. Trees grew thickly along much of the river, their boughs dipping over it. Silvery cloaks of moss covered much of the boughs. The river became a darker green, and for a while it seemed that the world itself was all decked in green. The embankment, the water, and even the sky seemed to take on the hue. Yet there were other colors as well, fascinating, intriguing. Here and there, wildflowers grew, their petals creating bursts and riots of color. The river here was wide and deep, and the breeze was with them. The sails filled gently, then began to puff out tightly.

She started at a sudden cawing sound and realized that birds within the tangled foliage were giving off the sometimes shrill, sometimes plaintive calls.

The sky was darkening. They were in for rain again, she thought. The wild foliage on the shoreline began to writhe and undulate, and when she saw a sudden fluttering of color, she was certain that she was seeing a befeathered Indian stalking them from the concealment of the green bank. The trees began to bow deeper, their
cloaks of moss stretching out like webs, their branches like skeletal fingers. She inhaled on a harsh breath, watching.

A bird whistled out a cry and soared out of the bushes. She had seen a feather—but one attached to a living creature. She exhaled on a shaky breath, then nearly screamed aloud when she felt a touch on her shoulder. She spun around. The wind caught her hair and whipped it free. Jarrett held her shoulders. He had stripped down to his breeches only, even his feet were bare, and he seemed as bronze as an Indian himself as he shouted to her, making his voice stronger than the growing moan of the wind.

“Get to the cabin, you’ll be soaked in a moment!”

She stared at him with no reply and he frowned, touching her cheek. “You’re snow white!”

“I—thought I saw a feather.”

“And?” he queried somewhat harshly, a brow arched high.

“It was—a feather.”

“You turned white over a feather?”

“I thought it was part of an Indian.”

“I don’t know what they told you wherever you come from, Tara, but Indians do not
grow
feathers.”

“Don’t be an idiot, I didn’t think that it
grew
on an Indian, I thought that it was part of a headdress. Unless you’re going to tell me that Florida Indians do not ever make use of bird feathers?”

“They make use of feathers,” he said evenly. “But since you are not screaming and have not plunged into the river I assume that you didn’t see an Indian?”

“No.”

“You mean that the feather was actually part of a
bird?
” he inquired.

She lifted her chin, swept up her skirts, and shook off
his touch as she started by him. “Excuse me,” she murmured regally, “I think that I will avoid the rain—and any other nasty and irritating things to be found on deck.”

Jarrett clenched his teeth and almost stopped her, but he let her walk by.

The rain started. It was light at first. Hands on his hips, he stared at the shoreline.

He’d had no right to taunt her, and he was damned glad that what she’d seen had turned out to be a bird.

Because the Indians were out there. Watching him. And they would watch him all the way home.

The rain fell throughout the day, light upon occasion, heavy, then nothing more than a drizzle. Tara was able to spend most of the day going through what Nancy had considerately delivered to the captain’s cabin. She was pleased to discover that Nancy had indeed done well for her, and she was grateful for the many fabrics and patterns and underthings she found within the boxes. She spent much of the day absorbed in cutting and pinning fabric and adding her own touches. When the afternoon began to wane and she heard footsteps, she hurriedly wrapped up her work and returned everything to a box, but the footsteps went on by her.