When his lips moved to her neck, Selena’s eyes glanced into the darkness amid the trees.
Dan’s eyes looked back at her with furious anguish.
Selena gasped and lurched to her feet in panic, her eyes darting in the darkness to find him again. She brought up her hands to cover her nakedness.
Jack was at her side in half a heartbeat. “What is it?”
he whispered hoarsely.
“He saw us! Dan saw us!”
“What do you mean he saw us? What are you afraid of? Where is he?”
It was then that Selena realized, with her heart hammering in her chest, that her clothes had never come off. It was a dream.
Fifteen
Dan cruised in like a shark quietly fol owing the scent of blood. He didn’t spare a glance at Josie, and fixed his eyes on the three men. At first, their attention was on her, but it soon shifted.
One of them went stil and stopped breathing. The other couldn’t hold his gaze. But it was the last man that changed everything. He stared back unrepentantly, and with a satisfaction that would have been wel -disguised to anyone else’s eyes. The staggering rage that Dan had been suppressing was coming alive, and he couldn’t stop it, he didn’t want to stop it.
Josie was saying something, but Dan didn’t hear her.
He moved toward the third man very slowly and halted only a pace away, squinting down as his ire burgeoned. The man stared back without fear. Perhaps he thought he was safe with Josie.
“Did you touch her?” Dan asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
The man dared to lean toward him to answer. “Only a little,” he said more quietly stil .
Dan’s arm shot out instantly and clamped the man’s throat. His cavalier expression gave way to shock and terror. Dan squeezed harder in a haze of searing fury that blocked out everything around him.
The man thought he could pry Dan’s hand off, but found himself instead being lifted from the ground.
Dan vaguely heard Josie’s shouting, fol owed by a feeble attempt to pul his arm down. Al he could see was the man’s hands on Selena, and the death he deserved for it. The death he was going to enjoy delivering. But not before this animal got a taste of the pain Dan was going to force on him.
Then there was a blade against his throat, and his senses suddenly cleared. If they hadn’t, he might have kil ed Josie too, in his blindness.
“Drop him Dan. I don’t want to kil you.”
He could have snatched the knife from her easily, but it had brought back his reason, so he hesitated and lowered the vermin grudgingly to the ground, easing his grip just enough to give him a breath.
“Let him go,” Josie demanded, enunciating each word furiously.
As Dan’s reason crept back, he weighed the situation. Should he final y crush the man’s larynx and cross Josie, or let go and deal with the man at a later time so he could salvage his plan?
Final y, his need to hurt the man won, so he let go.
He would take al the time he needed deciding how best to make him suffer later.
The miserable thing fel to the ground and curled into a bal , choking and gasping frantical y for air.
Dan grimaced down at him, and Josie moved her knife from his throat.
“You’re becoming a world of trouble Dan,” she told him through her own labored breathing.
He pried his eyes from his quarry to meet hers. It was clear she was rattled.
“What the hel was that about?” she hissed, running her hand through her hair in exasperation.
“You heard him,” Dan growled, breathing deeply to bring his blood down.
“I didn’t hear anything!” she exclaimed.
“He touched Selena,” Dan answered, realizing only then that they had spoken too quietly for her ears. He glanced around for the other two men, but couldn’t see them. “Where are they?” he demanded, turning to survey the tent quickly. “Where are the other two?”
“Wel let’s see,” Josie yel ed in a biting voice. “I think they ran out of here about when you lifted Victor off the ground by his throat!”
“Victor,” Dan echoed, looking down as the man continued to struggle for air. “Wrong choice in a name.”
Dan hurried out of the tent and scanned the camp for the other two men. Josie was on his heels.
“What are you doing now?” she barked. “Dan, stop!
Cooperation my ass! Stop!”
He whirled to glare down at her. “I’m going to find them,” he said, aware that people in the camp were watching and listening.
“Why? They’re gone.”
“Information.”
Josie guffawed. “Now you’re thinking. I doubt you’re going to find them. I’m sure Victor’s scared shitless enough to tel you anything you want to hear now.”
“He won’t be able to speak.”
“Oh, that’s fantastic. Wel I want to know what the hel is goin’ on. How do you know they did anythin’ to Selena?”
“I asked him if he touched her, and he said ‘only a little.’” Dan informed her through gritted teeth.
“Wel , you need to get yourself under control!”
She was right.
“I’m lockin’ this thing down right now,” she went on.
“You and I are going to the Crater and I am going to find out where my medical supplies went. Victor wil come with us.
When we find Selena, I’l know if she recognizes him.”
“We’re in agreement.” That was exactly what he would have suggested to convince her, although it was going to be an ugly trip if Victor would be making it with them, alive.
“And you are not to touch him,” she said, pausing to add, “But he doesn’t have to know that.”
Dan studied her face, which was haggard with stress. She had cal ed him to her tent for a reason, only he hadn’t waited to find out what it was. Now she was going to tel him.
“Those men are foragers. They came back without their horses and gave me a bul shit story about it. I cal ed you so you could question them about Selena, not so you could kil them on sight. This is getting to the point where it doesn’t matter who started out innocent,” she warned.
Dan fought to keep his temper, frustrated that things that were so obvious to him were lost on other people. “Do you think what you just saw wasn’t real?” he demanded.
“And you already knew those men were away from camp the same time Selena was missing, and that they lied to you! What the hel did you expect?”
“It looked real to me,” she said, shaking her head.
“But I have seen every kind of crazy in my lifetime, Dan; every kind of cunning, and every kind of cruel. I’m short my medical supplies
and
three horses. For al I know, she could have stolen the animals too, and my men were too embarrassed to admit it. She could have planned to hide them away from the Crater until we left. You could be playing along and this could al be an elaborate resource grab. I don’t know what’s true, and I’m not going to just believe you in blind faith. Now if we find Victor did whatever you think he did to her, he’s al yours. Until then, I need to know that you wil respect my authority over my own people.”
“Agreed,” he answered, finding that maintaining diplomacy was harder now than ever. She was handling this mess far too slowly, and his stalwart determination to stick to his original plan was hampering his effectiveness.
The reality was that Victor had done something to Selena and he had no idea how far it had gone. What if he was lying?
They could have raped her
, he forced himself to acknowledge, weathering waves of violent impulses. But the men had returned, and Jack had fol owed Selena last night. Had he stopped them? Had he rescued her? Had he found her when they were through? Were they riding away together? No. Jack would never leave his treasure trove of possessions, and Selena wouldn’t leave Dan without a word of explanation or so much as a goodbye. If they planned to return to the Grazer camp, they would have probably been back by now. In al likelihood, they were bound for the Crater, but Dan had no way of knowing in what condition Selena would arrive. How far would Jack go to seduce her? He could be losing her this very second.
“I need to move now,” he told Josie, final y managing to mask his dark emotions again.
“Fine,” she said, and they made their way briskly back to her tent. “Angela!” Josie cal ed to the girl. “Get help tacking the horses. It wil be Dan and I, Victor, Roark, Bil and the boys if they’re back. We’l need provisions. Oh, and I want Gary too.”
Dan fol owed Josie into her tent, but only to check on Victor. He was in one of the canvas chairs holding his throat, coughing occasional y and teetering where he sat.
His gaze was both defeated and afraid, but that was a far cry from Dan’s satisfaction.
“Roark?” he inquired.
Josie nodded. “Yep, and if he starts another fight, I’d appreciate it if you did the same thing you did the first time.
You can make him submit but you’re not going to kil him.”
This trip was going to test his restraint like nothing he’d experienced.
Dan didn’t have long to wait before they were underway. Including Roark and Victor, Josie had brought a total of ten of her most able-bodied men. Based on her subtle body language, she was now feeling less sympathetic and more suspicious toward him than she was letting on. In fact, she was on the warpath. The events of the past day had taken their tol , and apparently, when Josie was stressed, she was aggressive. That made two of them.
Like Dan, it required a great effort for her to keep things diplomatic. Stil , she hadn’t entirely dismissed the possibility that he was in the right. That was al he needed.
Dan took the lead to send a message: turning his back on Victor and Roark was no concern to him. By this point, they knew his lack of fear was not bravado. His position was as likely to keep the men in check as it was to al ow Josie to study him easily.
“You told me you wasn’t comin’ to start trouble when I let you in,” Bil remembered, pul ing up just behind him.
“You done made a lot of enemies since then.”
“You done made a lot of enemies since then.”
“Unfortunately.”
“We’re assuming there’s an ambush planned for us.”
“There isn’t one, at least not by my people,” Dan assured him, keeping his eyes ahead. Bil had spoken quietly and they were out of earshot of the others. If he’d real y believed Dan had an ambush waiting, he wouldn’t have told him they were prepared for it.
“I know,” Bil answered after a pause.
“How?” he wondered, glancing speculatively over his shoulder at the sinewy cowboy. He hadn’t had any contact with the man since their first meeting. Bil had been tending to the grazing cattle.
“I’ve been paying attention.”
Dan needed no further explanation, so he nodded and remained silent, although he did find the statement a little amusing, considering Bil ’s poor eyesight.
They rode on through the forested hil s in silence until the light faded and the stars began to appear.
When they made camp, everyone but Josie and Bil gave him a wide berth, which he found convenient. He was acutely aware of every one of them at al times, which was likely needless, but automatic. Roark and Victor rarely took their eyes off him. The latter was stil incapable of speech.
Josie had requested Gary by name. Dan had seen him in the camp, but didn’t know him. A cursory look revealed that he was a skil ed tracker and a trained fighter. To the untrained eye, he was average in every way, doing his best to keep himself and his abilities under the radar, which natural y attracted Dan’s scrutiny. The other men were just men. No doubt Josie felt more secure with extra bodies around, now that she’d begun to develop a sense of his capabilities and no longer trusted him.
That night, he knew that he would rest easier than most of the others. Some believed he would kil them in their sleep, and he had no fear of the reverse. He slept lightly, out of habit.
The next morning, Dan took his time getting ready to move on, despite his persistent urge to fly to the Crater with al speed. This was a strategic move.
Roark’s ability to control his hatred had been fluctuating. This morning, he was in a surly mood, and hardly made any effort to conceal his glares at Dan and even his horse, Buck. It was obvious that in Roark’s eyes, the two were one and the same. That wasn’t far off. Dan had come to think of Buck as an extension of himself.
Roark probably viewed the great, dark stal ion as a glaring symbol of Josie’s rejection. It briefly crossed Dan’s mind that Roark might want to hurt the animal. He would never get that chance. Buck was an intel igent, wary creature who wouldn’t hesitate to rip Roark to pieces if he sensed even the slightest aggression.
The frustrated man eagerly joined Josie at the front when they set out, but the two were mostly silent.
Dan settled into the middle of the pack, a chal enging choice as Buck snorted his irritation that he wasn’t in his rightful place in front. He had to soothe the animal often before he could begin studying the group in earnest.
He watched them talk amongst themselves, observing their expressions and body language. Each of them had their own unique set of relaxed behaviors. Dan possessed the ability to absorb these and use them to recognize changes that betrayed hidden fear, lust, guilt, anger, and a number of other messy emotions. There was a pattern in the unconscious signals behind these emotions. Most signals were consistent with most people.
He’d learned that men rubbed their necks to soothe themselves when distressed, women would touch their hair when attracted to a man, and there were countless signs for lies. When children weren’t being truthful, they tended to stare at your face very careful y to discern whether or not you believed them. Sometimes adults did the same.
That being said, in Dan’s experience, the best indicators of emotion were personal, and that was why he had grown accustomed to noting how people behaved when at ease, including their gestures, the way they spoke, their choice of words and the tone of their voices. Every person was a web of information, and the disturbance of a single thread would shake the whole in a unique way that pointed to its origin.
Dan’s father had been the source of this talent, although it was the only one he hadn’t cultivated intentional y. The ceaseless training of his upbringing had been rigorous, and when it would seem that the harshness of their circumstances had stretched Dan to the limit, his father would stretch him further. He’d learned to be sharply aware of literal y everything in his environment. One of his father’s favorite lessons was to tel Dan to close his eyes at random times, and only then describe a target. He did not describe the target’s location, and Dan had to throw his knife before opening his eyes. He’d mastered this at the age of fifteen. Luckily, he did so before he’d mastered the ability to know when his father would ask him to do it.