“Ah, now this makes sense,” Boone said thoughtfully.
“What makes sense?” Maddie questioned, bemused.
Boone smiled as he hitched his thumb toward Jonah. “You and the Comanche. Couldn’t quite picture the two of you together, right from the start.”
Maddie narrowed her gaze on Boone. “And why not? Don’t you think I’m good enough for him, either?”
Boone flung up his hand and grinned in amusement. “Easy, wildcat. Save that fiery tone and sharp claws for your supposed husband.”
“He thought it was the other way around, princess,” Jonah informed her. “
I’m
the one who should be taking offense here.”
“Then why aren’t you? The two of you are living testimony that it is possible to bridge the gap between different backgrounds and cultures. You grew up in one civilization and live in another. We’re all the same.
Americans.
”
That shut them up, Maddie noted. As well it should have. They rode in silence for an hour before Jonah called a halt.
“We’ll camp here for the night,” he announced. “We can make use of the sheltering trees and the river before we face the rough terrain, formidable thorns and oversize patches of prickly pear cactus that lie to the west.” He glanced quickly at Maddie as he retrieved his gear from behind the saddle. “You might as well take advantage of the river for bathing because waterholes will be few and far between tomorrow.”
Nodding agreeably, she grabbed her satchel and headed to the river.
“I’ll double back to see how close our shadows are following,” Boone volunteered.
“No,” Jonah countered. “You can hunt supper and set up camp. Your gear got wet when we had to swim your horse across the river. You have clothes to hang up to dry. I don’t.”
Assured that he was leaving Maddie in capable hands, Jonah mounted up and headed for higher
ground. He was oddly pleased that Maddie had come to his defense earlier, even if anyone with eyes in his head could see that he and Maddie were hopelessly mismatched. But Boone understood perfectly, even if he hadn’t debated the issue with Maddie.
In most of the places Jonah had been through, half-breeds were considered second-class citizens in white society. Freaks of nature. Boone could identify with that prejudice. It was as familiar to him as it was to Jonah.
Besides, if Maddie truly was an heiress and land baroness, as she claimed, Jonah had nothing to offer that she didn’t have already. He didn’t have a home to call his own. He didn’t have a deed to acres of property. True, he had money in the bank at Coyote Springs that he didn’t have time to spend because he lived and breathed his assignments with the Rangers. But no woman he’d ever met was interested in a nomadic half-breed. Why would Maddie be any different?
And why was he wasting time mulling over unproductive thoughts in the first place? he asked himself irritably. There was nothing between him and Maddie Garret except a temporary business association. By tomorrow night he could deliver her to Mobeetie. From there she could return to her ranch with ease, because Jonah intended to waylay the four men who refused to give up their crusade to separate her from her money.
If Boone decided to guide Maddie all the way to her ranch, then that was his business. Johan winced uncomfortably at the thought of leaving Boone and
Maddie together. It was obvious to him that Boone found Maddie attractive and intriguing. Being a man, Jonah had no trouble interpreting the glances Boone had sent Maddie’s way after he’d discovered the marriage was a hoax.
Jonah’s thoughts trailed off when he lifted his spyglass to scan the countryside. Sure enough, four riders were following the same path Jonah had taken along the river. Determined to throw the men off track and buy some time, Jonah retraced the trail to a place where he could cover their previous tracks and leave the impression that he had turned due north toward the stage road that connected Fort Griffin to Mobeetie.
When Jonah finished setting his decoy trail there were three sets of hoofprints leading over the mesquite-covered hill and down into the narrow valley that followed the river tributary.
Let that drunken buffalo hunter and his cohort assume Jonah had taken to the shallow creek to avoid leaving a trail. When those scoundrels finally figured out that they’d been duped they would have to waste precious time backtracking. By then Jonah would be deep into the winding ravines and rugged terrain that he had once known like the back of his hand.
Unfortunately, he and Boone were going to be forced to follow the trails and revisit sites that were steeped with Indian history and legend. Jonah frowned bleakly at the thought. He had spent half a lifetime
avoiding
the only place that had ever felt like home to him. He figured it was the same with Boone. But come tomorrow, both of them were going to encounter the unresolved resentment of their past.
Maddie returned from her bath feeling revived and refreshed—and starved. Breakfast and lunch had entailed no more than chewing on the beef jerky and pemmican that Jonah carried in his saddlebags. Maddie was more than ready to sprawl out on a blanket to rest her aching backside and consume a meal that wasn’t as tough and tasteless as leather.
To her surprise, she saw Boone rather than Jonah crouched by the small campfire set on a sandy knoll.
Boone glanced up as Maddie approached. “How’s the water, princess?” he asked.
She pulled up short and stared him down. “It’s wet. And the name is Maddie Garret. Don’t call me
princess
unless you want me to refer to you as
heap big chief.
”
“You let Danhill get away with it.”
“Yes, well, he’s a tough nut to crack, but I intend to break him of that annoying habit if it’s the last thing I do.”
Boone chuckled as he laid the prairie chicken that he’d cleaned and dressed for supper over the fire. “You give as good as you get, Maddie. No wonder Danhill is having a difficult time adjusting to you.”
Maddie spread out her bedroll, then plunked down upon it. “Jonah Danhill would have a difficult time adjusting to any woman. Male arrogance hampers him,” she diagnosed as she opened a can of peaches to stave off her hunger pangs. She stared pointedly at Boone. “I’d say you suffer from the same malady.”
“You’re wrong, Maddie. I have a healthy respect for females.” He grinned mischievously and added, “As long as they stay in their place.”
His teasing remark prompted Maddie to smile. Unlike Jonah—Mr. Serious and Skeptical—this particular half-breed had a well-developed sense of humor and he wasn’t so wary and suspicious of everything she said and did.
Maddie munched on a juicy peach and studied Boone consideringly. “If you and Jonah share similar backgrounds, I’m surprised that you don’t hold the same grudge against me because my ranch sits in the heart of your former homeland.”
“I hold a grudge, all right,” Boone admitted candidly. “I just don’t happen to suffer from the same complications that Danhill has encountered with you.”
Maddie cocked her head and frowned curiously. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”
“Didn’t figure you could,” he said enigmatically. “You and Danhill are both wearing blinders. Noticed that right off.”
On the wings of that baffling comment Boone rose from a crouch and ambled downstream. “You’re in charge of cooking while I bathe…. And keep your pistol handy,” he cautioned.
When he disappeared from sight, Maddie plunked back on the quilt to stare up at the vault of blue sky illuminated with the pastel rays of sunset. Maybe her first impression of Boone had been all wrong, she mused. The man was as perplexing as Jonah. The only difference was that Boone spoke in riddles while Jonah spoke bluntly and left little doubt as to what he really thought of her.
She was an aggravating inconvenience to Jonah,
Maddie reminded herself. If he didn’t possess such a strong sense of duty he wouldn’t be here right now.
Why hadn’t he turned back? she asked herself. He still didn’t believe her. And he certainly didn’t find her as attractive as she found him, because he’d had ample opportunity to make amorous advances—and hadn’t. When he
did
touch her he always pulled away long before she was ready to let go.
Maddie sighed in frustration. Her one-sided fascination for Jonah was a waste of time and emotion. She knew that. But it didn’t stop her from wanting to explore those unprecedented sensations he aroused in her.
Judging by Jonah’s standoffishness, Maddie was surprised any of her would-be suitors pursued her at all. But then she reminded herself that most men knew of her family’s wealth and saw her as a convenient means to an end. None of them really cared about the person she was on the inside. They were only interested in her inheritance.
Given Jonah’s indifferent behavior, Maddie wondered if she had a single endearing quality that might attract a man.
She was seriously beginning to doubt it.
Her self-deprecating thoughts scattered like buckshot when she heard rustling in the bushes behind her. She grabbed the pistol she had laid beside her and came to her knees in one swift motion. She watched a grin of approval spread across Jonah’s ruggedly handsome face as she held him at gunpoint.
“Good. You’re learning, princess,” he praised as he ambled toward her. “Always keep your guard up.”
“Stop calling me princess,” she said as her admiring gaze flooded helplessly over his impressive physique.
“Whatever you say. You’re the one holding the pistol.”
Maddie set aside the weapon and rose to her feet. She couldn’t say for certain what compelled her, but she walked impulsively to Jonah, slid her hands up his chest and pushed herself up on tiptoes to kiss him. Maybe she wanted to draw a reaction from him, just to prove to herself that she could. Her dealings with him constantly pummeled her feminine pride and compelled her to make a lasting impression on him because his indifference offended and challenged her.
The instant her lips found his the frustration that had been hounding her melted into a swirling vortex of desire. Maddie kissed Jonah for all she was worth, foolishly wishing he would return some of the hungry need that he constantly aroused in her.
When his arms fastened around her hips and he lifted her off the ground, her mind reeled with satisfaction and pleasure. The self-restraint she’d come to expect from him suddenly seemed nonexistent. His mouth moved demandingly, possessively upon hers, and she reveled in the taste of him, the feel of his masculine body pressed tightly to hers.
Wild, uninhibited sensations rippled through her body when Jonah’s hands glided over her hips, then guided her legs around his waist. And all the while his lips devoured and his tongue thrust in and out again, setting an erotic rhythm that caused a coil of red-hot desire to burn into her very core.
Maddie had never fully understood what wanting
felt like—until now. When his hand drifted up from her hip to caress the side of her breast, sizzling pleasure shot through her. If she hadn’t realized it before, she now understood the power Jonah held over her body. A power she
allowed
him to have because she wanted him in a way she had never dreamed it was possible to want and need a man.
“Damn it, Maddie, you make me crazy,” Jonah growled against her kiss-swollen lips. “Tell me to stop this insanity.”
“I can’t because I want more of it,” she whispered breathlessly. “
You
make
me
crazy.”
Her body arched involuntarily against his as his fingertips brushed across the fabric that covered her aching nipples. She felt as if she had gone up in flames, felt her pulse pounding like the wings of a captive bird fighting for freedom. But she didn’t want to be free of these ineffable sensations. She wanted to touch him as familiarly as he touched her, and let the passion he instilled in her intensify and expand until she was drowning in it.
Refusing to break the scorching kiss, Maddie fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, then sighed in pleasure when her palms splayed over the sleek, muscled flesh of his chest. When Jonah groaned, she felt empowered, fascinated that she could draw an answering response from him. She moved her hand experimentally over his washboard belly and was rewarded with another rumbling growl of need.
He wanted her, she realized. She could taste it in his hungry kiss, feel it in the hard arousal that pressed against her thigh. She had moved this unyielding rock of a man to something more than suspicion and skep
ticism. Even if he refused to let himself trust her completely, he was not immune to her. That revelation provided Maddie with an incredible sense of satisfaction.
“No one ever kissed my lips off when I returned to camp,” Boone remarked as he stepped into plain view and shattered the haze of passion that had wrapped itself around Maddie and Jonah like a cocoon.
J
onah grimaced the instant he heard Boone’s taunting voice. Swiftly he set Maddie away from him and stepped back. He cursed under his breath as he watched Boone amble over to hunker down by the campfire. A sly smile played on the Kiowa’s lips as his gaze bounced between Jonah and Maddie.
“Prairie chicken is burned to a crisp,” he said, then tossed Maddie and Jonah another teasing grin. “Not the only thing around here that’s burning to a crisp, I see.”
Jonah was so hard and aching that he wanted to drop to his knees and howl in unholy torment. For the life of him he didn’t know why Maddie had approached him out of the blue. But the moment her dewy lips had melted against his he couldn’t remember his own name or recall why it was necessary to keep his distance from her.
Hell, he wasn’t sure he could have kept from savoring those honeyed lips or mapping the supple curves and swells of her body if someone held a gun to his head.
She had unleashed his restraint in one second flat and left him a slave to his forbidden desires. It was as if he had been plucked out of reality and dropped into an erotic fantasy. He’d become so needy and desperate so quickly that he’d wanted to fill his hands with her, consume her, possess her completely.
If those betraying thoughts weren’t bad enough, Boone was on hand to observe just how little control Jonah possessed when he came within touching distance of this female who could turn him wrong side out and crumble his defenses in one fell swoop. She could transform him from a powerful mountain lion into a helpless pussycat in the time it took to blink.
Hell and damnation, Jonah silently fumed. He’d thought that having Boone underfoot would discourage and prevent him from acting on these obsessive cravings that he battled daily. Apparently not. The way this woman made him feel was downright scary. He simply could not trust himself to touch her without ardent desire boiling his good sense into mush.
“I need to unsaddle my horse and stake him out to graze before supper,” Jonah said before he wheeled away from the other man’s all-too-knowing stare.
“Yeah, that’ll solve the problem,” Boone mocked playfully. “Be sure to put that frisky demon on a short leash.”
Jonah scowled sourly as he stalked off, knowing the frisky demon Boone referred to was
not
the horse. Although Jonah had liked the Kiowa since their first meeting, he wanted to wring the man’s ornery neck for taunting him about his very obvious obsession with Maddie.
Well, at least tonight he wouldn’t have to sleep
beside her and spend half the night trying to keep his hands to himself. She had her own sleeping bag, and Jonah had no excuse to cuddle up next to her. That was one less temptation he’d have to face. Thank goodness.
Jonah felt his mood rapidly deteriorate the following morning when they rode away from the lush river valley to encounter the craggy sandstone escarpments, dotted with junipers, mesquite and cedars, that stretched as far as the eye could see. He sensed the change overcome Boone, as well. They were heading straight into the heart of the Comanchería.
As a young brave Jonah had ventured off on vision quests to communicate with his guardian spirit. He, like Boone, had ridden through the deep ravines to visit the isolated haunts where the guiding spirits of the Comanche and Kiowa resided. Jonah could almost feel the eerie presences gathering around him as they trekked near, but not across, the gone-but-not-forgotten battlefields where The People had clashed with their white and Mexican enemies in years gone by.
At high noon they reached the canyon where Colonel Mackenzie had decided to crush the Indians once and for all by rounding up and slaughtering more than fourteen hundred of their prized horses. The army had burned the tipis and food supplies before marching the last band of Indians to the reservation.
“My God, what is that?” Maddie asked as she stared past the mirage that shimmered across the arid ground, studying the western slope of the basin, which glowed eerie white.
“Bleached bones,” Jonah said as a wrenching ache knotted in his chest. “This is where the army destroyed our people’s beloved horse herd and living quarters. The army left our people with nothing and drove them off their land, just as surely as they exterminated the buffalo.”
“Damn them to hell,” Boone muttered bitterly as he nudged his mount forward to stare across the gravesite of bones. “The army took our last stronghold and turned it into a bloodbath. And they call
us
savages and heathens!”
Boone’s expression mirrored Jonah’s boiling resentment. A holocaust of emotions crowded in on him. The whispering wind seemed to carry the haunted voices of his anguished people. He could almost hear the tortured cries of outrage and disbelief, hear the wild screams of horses pelted mercilessly by army rifles. With fanatical fascination Jonah rode closer to the site, knowing it was time to view the atrocity he’d heard about but had refused to visit, until he’d agreed to lead Maddie on her journey home.
The impact on his emotions was everything he’d heard it would be. Outrage, grief and fury blazed through him. The demons of his past rose up like ominous thunderclouds. He looked across the mouth of the rugged valley that seethed with death and despair, and felt bottled resentment, grown more bitter and intense with age, rising like a smothering fog.
His horse shifted uneasily beneath him, as if the gelding sensed the eerie presence that loomed over this tragic site. Jonah glanced sideways to see Boone’s horse, as well as Maddie’s, shying away from the bone-covered hill, where legend claimed a
phantom herd of horses thundered across the valley beneath every full moon.
Jonah flinched when he felt Maddie’s small hand slide over his. Shaking off the unnerving sensations that bombarded him, he noticed she had slipped her other hand consolingly over Boone’s. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she stared at the skeletons that told the grisly tale of ruthless violence and cruel death.
“I’m so sorry I forced you to face the past,” she said with a shaky breath. “
I didn’t know.
Couldn’t even imagine…” Her voice dried up as her watery gaze settled on Jonah. “Go back.” She gave their hands a sympathetic squeeze. “I can’t bear the thought of making you confront more hellish memories like this one.”
Maddie swallowed convulsively as emotions, guilt and regret foremost among them, knotted in the pit of her stomach. She had hurt both men deeply by forcing them to pass through this area. She could tell by the stricken looks on their faces that it was like riding through the valley of doom.
“Go back,” she repeated brokenly.
Abruptly she gouged her heels into the mare’s flanks and thundered off, circling the gravesite and heading due north. Jonah and Boone didn’t give chase. Couldn’t. Not yet. They had to work through the tormented emotions that swirled around them and converged to strike with the force of a thunderbolt.
“The army knew they would devastate our people, who prided themselves in being experienced horse trainers and skilled riders when the herd fell beneath their firing squad.” Jonah scowled angrily.
“I wonder how those bastards would feel if the situation were reversed and the Indians had destroyed
their
way of life and stole all that was vital and important to them?” Boone growled resentfully. “I won’t be able to offer my services to the army as a guide after this.” His stormy gaze swept over the demoralizing site again and again, as did Jonah’s. “Even though Major Thorton and his men aren’t personally responsible for this violent atrocity I still hold them accountable in my heart.”
Jonah shared the same fierce feeling of contempt for the army. “First the Trail of Tears to remove the tribes from the fertile lands the whites coveted in the East. Then the Sand Creek Massacre, which came on the heels of a supposed peace treaty,” he snarled in disgust.
“And the Washita Massacre,” Boone added vehemently. “Not to mention the strychnine poisonings and premeditated introduction of smallpox and cholera epidemics to annihilate our people.”
Old hatreds seethed around Jonah like a host of fire-breathing dragons. Hatreds that he had willfully buried deep inside him and spent years avoiding now rose, one by one, to haunt him.
He reminded himself that he had learned to face the dangers of his occupation and that he had to conquer the demons of his past before they swallowed him alive. But this was far more devastating than any physical injury he’d ever suffered. This was a wound that struck heart-and-soul deep.
Jonah forced himself to shift his attention to the lone rider who scrabbled up the rock-strewn slope, then vanished into another glimmering mirage on the
mesa. As much as he despised the coil of emotion that ate away at him, he would not allow Maddie to venture northwest without him. He would escort her safely to Mobeetie before he turned back. He couldn’t bear the thought of her perishing out here among the other ghosts of his tormented past.
“Go back, Boone,” Jonah murmured as he reined his steed in the direction Maddie had taken. “I’ll contact you when I return to the Flat.”
“Is she worth this, Danhill?” Boone asked pointedly.
Jonah brought his skittish horse to an abrupt halt and twisted in the saddle to meet the other man’s dark, smoldering gaze. “You tell me, Boone. It suddenly seems as if our roles have been reversed and she was sent into our lives to guide
us
through our past because we refused to face it ourselves. Just what is the measure of a man who allows his fears and bitterness to dictate who he is and what he will become?”
Boone’s quiet laughter held not one hint of amusement. “Damn, Danhill. I was thinking the same thing. Maybe visiting the boiling spring beneath Eagle’s Ridge, where the spirits reside, will soothe this ache inside me. If you’re going after her then I’m coming with you.”
“For only one more day,” Jonah told Boone.
“After that, I’m thinking I’ll take you up on your offer to join your Ranger battalion.”
Jonah nodded agreeably. “At least on the Rio Grande you’re too damn busy dodging flying bullets and fighting to stay alive to let your mind wander back into the past to gruesome landmarks like this
one, where phantoms call out for justice and revenge that can never come.”
Side by side, Jonah and Boone circled the canyon to track down Maddie. Ironic, thought Jonah. Maddie Garret had become their guide, though she had no idea where she was going or what she would find. Jonah figured that he and Boone would be better men for this, but right now it felt as if they were trekking through hell to endure every torment of the damned.
Maddie reached a deep gully overgrown with juniper and mesquite, and couldn’t stir another step. She couldn’t forgive herself for forcing Jonah and Boone to revisit that grotesque site. She was thoroughly upset with herself for causing them to endure such outrage and grief.
She dismounted and sank defeatedly to the ground. Tears scalded her eyes and regret descended upon her with the impact of a rockslide when she imagined all Jonah and Boone had lost. As tough and invincible as Jonah was, she knew he was hurting in places that he refused to allow the world to see. Yet what wounded him cut deeply into herself like a razor-sharp sword. She was so attuned to him that watching him suffer tortured her beyond measure.
And if that wasn’t enough to shatter her composure, she only had two days left before she was to deliver the ransom.
If
Christina was still alive or even cared if she were rescued. The thought provoked an outburst of tears and an eruption of emotion.
Amid wrenching sobs Maddie asked herself how it was possible to weather some kinds of adversity courageously and then fall completely apart when con
fronted with others. Seeing Jonah and Boone hurting, and speculating about her sister’s terror crumbled Maddie’s composure thoroughly.
You are such a fool,
Maddie chastised herself as she wiped away the streams of tears with the back of her hands.
You’ve become so prideful and independent the past six months that you refused to become beholden to Ward Tipton or Avery Hanson. Imbecile that you are, you’ve made this situation worse, not better!
She knew both Avery and Ward had been waiting for her to accept their marriage proposals, and she had refused to let them believe for one minute that any assistance with the ransom money would guarantee her willingness to wed. Maddie had raced off on the first stage bound for Fort Worth to acquire the necessary funds. It had cost her valuable time that Christina might not have, and it had caused Jonah and Boone unnecessary torment.
Dear God! If Maddie’s own newfound independence hadn’t gotten in her way, Christina might have been home by now. Damn it, what had Maddie been thinking? If she hadn’t been such a stubborn, self-centered imbecile she would have agreed to marry Ward or Avery, just to ensure the ransom would be paid quickly.
“Damn, princess, I didn’t know you had so much water in you,” Jonah remarked.
Maddie blotted her eyes, then glanced up to see Jonah and Boone poised on the rocky escarpment above her. She thought she’d found the perfect, out-of-the-way place to fall apart. She should have known these two human bloodhounds would track her down.
Now she’d humiliated herself by allowing them to see and hear her bawl like an abandoned child.
She
was responsible for dragging these two men through hell and for prolonging Christina’s captivity and torment. No doubt, her father would have been bitterly disappointed in her inability to take command of her life and resolve the problems she’d encountered. She was an absolute failure and she was causing turmoil in every life she touched.
“I’m s-so s-sorry,” she stuttered.
“You said that already,” Jonah reminded her.
“I’ve p-put you and B-Boone through unnecessary misery and my sister is suffering needlessly because I’m an imbecile!” she finished on a shuddering breath.