The Darkest Heart Read online

  “What are you doing?” she said again.

  He didn’t look up. “Burying him.”

  “Why did you give him your shirt and gun and your knife?”

  Jack lifted the boy and carried him to a rock outcropping, placing him in a natural crevice. He began to pile rocks over it. “He had no shirt, no weapons,” he said simply.

  She had heard that this was the way Apaches buried their kin, in natural crevices, but she hadn’t believed it. She watched him pile on the stones until the body was no longer visible, the sight making her feel cold and clammy. “I don’t understand.”

  He lifted a large boulder and heaved it on top. When he turned to face her he was sweating freely. “It might be cold.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a four-day journey to the afterworld,” Jack said, gazing at her. “He had no shirt. He could get cold. And he might encounter spirits—evil ones. He had no weapons.” He walked past her.

  Candice just stared.

  He began collecting firewood. Once he had a blaze going he added green juniper and, from his saddlebags, sprigs of what looked to be sage and thyme. Then he strode to the stream, saying “Come here.”

  Still stunned by the entire afternoon, it took Candice a moment to respond. She approached cautiously while he stood impatiently, hands on his hips. “Strip.”

  “What?”

  “Strip. Then get in the water and bathe.”

  Her mouth opened, and she was so affronted and incredulous that for an instant no sound came out. “You have got to be kidding.”

  “No, I’m not,” he said, casually removing his loincloth.

  Candice instantly glanced at his groin, at the flaccid member nestled there, and then she went beet red, turning on her heel. He grabbed her and spun her around. “Just get out of your clothes and into the goddamn water.”

  “What are you going to do?” Her tone was fearful.

  He smiled, not with amusement. “I am not going to do what I’m beginning to think you want me to do,” he said. “Either you take off those clothes or I will.”

  Candice looked away and slowly began unbuttoning her blouse. She dared look at him. He was washing the loincloth with sand and water. She hesitated, reluctant to remove her blouse. She darted another look at him—he was now scrubbing his foot, his ankle. “Take it off,” he said.

  She took it off. “I’m not taking off my underwear,” she stated, removing her jeans.

  He didn’t look up. “Fine.”

  She waded as quickly as she could into the water and began washing without looking at him. She heard him splash out and started to relax. The water was delicious. She had been dirty. This wasn’t so bad, and using the sand as a scrub was an innovative idea. She dunked her head and began to rinse her long hair. Her gaze strayed to the bank.

  She tensed, while something hot flamed inside her.

  His buttocks were high and hard and tight, a pale bronze color, a stunning contrast to his darkly bronzed back and arms. She quickly looked down, anywhere but at him. Didn’t he care that he was standing there nude? And what had he been doing, immersing himself in the smoke from the fire like that?

  “Wash your clothes and come here,” he called.

  Her glance strayed. “What are we doing?”

  He didn’t turn to face her. The smoke was thick and fragrant. “The dead carry disease. It’s bad to touch them, to be near them. The smoke is purifying.”

  She washed her clothes and didn’t tell him what she thought about such primitive beliefs. Then, clad in her wet underthings, her arms crossed tightly over her breasts, she hesitantly approached—pausing behind him and careful not to look at his nudity. He stepped to the left, she stepped forward. The smoke was awful. She coughed.

  “Just relax,” he said. “Do as I do.”

  He bent and picked up the canteen and began dousing the fire. Thick steam rose, blanketing them with its warmth. She could hear his breathing, deeper and louder than normal. He had told her to do as he did. In their precarious state of undress, she didn’t want to attract his attention by not obeying. She began imitating his deep, uneven breathing, matching the sound, careful not to look at him. It was a ragged duet. He said, “What in hell are you doing?”

  She looked at him without thinking. His jaw was clenched. He was looking at her—specifically, he was looking at her breasts with their hard nipples. Candice instantly covered her chest with her arms—unsuccessfully. “You told me to do what you do.”

  He exhaled loudly, his eyes moving to her guileless face. Candice reddened and looked down, then quickly away.

  Too late—nothing would chase away the image of his thick, swollen shaft impaling the air. So thick, so big. She decided she didn’t care about contamination. She ran to her clothes and struggled into them. He didn’t say another word.

  CHAPTER NINE

  At dawn, he awoke.

  The world was still gray, with the faintest pink blush in the east. Last night they had moved a half mile downstream and made a camp for the night. Jack got soundlessly to his feet, his gaze instantly searching her out. She lay curled on the other side of the dead fire beneath the buckskin hide. He looked at her for one long moment, then turned and left the camp.

  Many images assailed him. How she had looked standing in the steam of the fire clad in her thin, wet undergarments; her expression when she had seen him. He almost smiled. Of course he hadn’t meant the erection to happen, as he didn’t mean it now, but he needed a woman—and he wanted her.

  They were only about thirty hours from the High C, and he couldn’t get there too soon. It was the enforced intimacy, he was sure. If she had been just another beautiful white woman he had seen in passing, ne would have forgotten her. His body wouldn’t be going crazy with impossible, hopeless need.

  Of course, there were so few white women in these parts, and even fewer pretty ones, much less a woman like Candice Carter. Kincaid, he corrected. Candice Carter Kincaid. He resolved to take care of his needs as soon as possible, and knew he was only kidding himself if he thought some whore’s arms were going to erase her image.

  He was angry again—a dark, frustrated anger of the heart.

  The growl sounded above him.

  The instant he heard it he had many thoughts in one split second. The mountain lion was belligerent. He hadn’t been aware of it because he was so preoccupied with her. The woman was going to be the death of him.

  He pulled his Colt, but too late. From above on the rock, the tawny cat was flying through the air. The force of the contact sent him backward before he could even fire, twenty claws cinching through his skin, the gun falling from his grasp as his hands came up instinctively between them.

  It was like the burning of hellfire. They rolled, a mass of human flesh and furred beast. The claws lifted, sank in, contracted—but he did not scream. He knew he could not get the cat off with brute force. His hand closed over his knife. He pulled it from his sheath and plunged it upward with desperation and sheer intent.

  For an instant he thought he had failed, then the cat’s eyes went wider and its mouth formed a screaming growl of fury. The claws embedded in his flesh stretched and pulled. The big body went rigid, then limp. The animal relaxed and Jack pushed him off, freezing up at the agony of those claws scorching through his flesh as the cat rolled aside. His knife protruded from its heart.

  Jack lay very still.

  He was panting, sweat streaming down his face, down his body. He had been trained to withstand pain, but the agony was close to unbearable. He needed a few moments to find the strength to move. His heart slowed, his breathing became less rapid. His hands found the dirt beneath him and he levered himself up with difficulty. The pink and gray morning darkened, spinning, and he fought not to pass out. He succeeded.

  He looked at the cat, which must have weighed over 150 pounds, and he looked at his knife. He got to his knees, every movement causing shots of searing pain, then pushed himself to his feet. He swayed, panting and fighting more waves of dizziness, then took two steps toward the cat, where he promptly fell to his knees again.

  It took a few moments to get enough strength, but he finally reached out and pulled the blade from the tawny chest, automatically wiping it in the dirt and sheathing it. The world was still spinning, and he thought, It’s only a few scratches, get up.

  He knew he could not take care of himself properly. The girl was only twenty yards away. There was more pain at that thought, a pain of the heart, of the soul. Now she could kill him and ride away. He couldn’t trust her. He needed his strength and his wits. He would have to force her to clean his back.

  He rested for an eternity that went too fast, then pushed himself to his feet again. He walked carefully, so as not to stagger, one foot in front of the other. The camp wasn’t far; there was no question in his own mind of not making it. But he paused once, holding on to a branch of scrub oak, willing strength, not weakness. Then he pulled his Colt, the handle strangely clammy in his hand, the weight of it surprisingly heavy, forcing the nose down. He pushed himself away from the tree. The ground was still spinning, but slowly, manageably.

  She was up, stoking the fire. She looked up as he neared, and her face went white. She leapt to her feet.

  He stood with the Colt hanging in his hand and wondered if he was swaying or if the ground was moving.

  “Oh, my God,” she said.

  He sank to his knees on the ground. When he looked up she hadn’t moved. He could see it all in her mind—her horror, and the leap of knowledge, too. She glanced at the stallion and he knew, with more pain, that he had been right. Given the chance, she would leave him to live or die. He raised the gun. It seemed to waver in front of his eyes, but then, she did too. “Get water. There’s—there’s w
hiskey—in my bags.”

  She didn’t move. Not at first, and then she turned and ran for the canteen, grabbing the saddlebags off the ground and hurrying back. She paused abruptly before him. He wanted to close his eyes. Never had they felt so heavy. He realized with a start that the gun was pointing at the ground, and he tried to lift it. She dropped the bags and the canteen, and before he could react, she had taken the gun away.

  He looked up. Now. Now she was going to leave. Or kill him first. But wasn’t it better this way? She was torturing his soul. “Go,” he whispered. “Go. Run. Leave.”

  Their gazes met. She glanced at his horse. Then her lips pursed together and she turned her back to him, and in that one instant, when he knew she was going, it was unbearable. But she removed her shirt, and her chemise, then replaced her shirt and turned to him. He watched her with new understanding, closing his eyes as she ripped the cotton. When she tenderly touched his shoulder where the skin was unhurt, his eyes flew open. “I have to clean these wounds,” she said. “It will hurt. Drink some whiskey, here.”

  She forced a few swallows down his mouth before he could object, to tell her, no, use the whiskey on my wounds, don’t waste it that way. But he was too tired and in too much pain to speak. Then he gasped as she poured the alcohol over his back, but it was the only sound he made. When she drenched the wounds on his chest, ribs, and legs, he didn’t make a sound. Sweat poured from his chin. She washed everything with water, rinsing the dirt, sand, and stones out. The red haze of pain was incessant. He wondered how long he could sit up, and knew it wouldn’t be much longer. His world was swaying precariously now.

  “Just another minute,” she soothed. “Here, let me put the blanket down. There. Now, careful …”

  She helped him and somehow he was lying down, and it was blessed. Then he became aware of something else—a soft damp cloth moved tenderly over his temple, his cheek, his jaw and chin as she bathed the sweat away. His last conscious thought was: She didn’t leave.

  CHAPTER TEN

  When he awoke the sun was high, and he knew he had slept through all of yesterday and half of today. He also knew, as he tensed his muscles expectantly, that he was well on his way to recovery. He was sore, he ached, but from the feel of it everything was scabbing up. He was famished. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, ignoring the twinge of pain, looked around, and froze.

  His horse and the girl were gone.

  His heartbeat quickened, and his disappointment was too acute to ignore. Then he shrugged it off—she hadn’t killed him—in fact, she had stayed until he was well enough to make it on his own.

  He heard the horse approaching when it was still out of sight, and he slowly rose to his feet. He looked around, then spied the saddlebags and his gunbelt and knife belt. He retrieved a Colt, moved into the shadows of some boulders, and waited.

  Candice Carter trotted into the clearing, two dead squirrels hanging from the pommel of his black.

  He stepped out and her gaze shot to him. They stared at each other.

  “You’re up,” she said.

  She hadn’t left. She was still there. He couldn’t believe it. He looked away so she wouldn’t see any of the turbulent emotions in his eyes, then moved back to the blanket and slowly sat.

  “You shouldn’t have gotten up,” she said, sliding off the black.

  “I’m a lot better,” he said, not looking at her.

  “You should be, you slept for about thirty hours. You had a fever, but not for long. You were very lucky.”

  His gaze pinned her. “Why didn’t you leave?”

  She shifted. “It wouldn’t have been right. To leave a hurt man.”

  “Even a half-breed Apache?” There was a mocking quality to his tone.

  She flushed and couldn’t meet his gaze, “I owed you,” she said, turning away.

  He watched her skin and clean the game with determination, her face set, and an aching grew in him. It wasn’t physical. Yesterday she had cared for his body with the tenderness of a wife. Now she was cooking his food, the most domestic of acts a woman could perform. It was as if she were his woman, doing these things to take care of him. Yet it was just a shimmering desert illusion. He looked away.

  When Candice had the squirrel roasting on a spit, she rose to her feet and looked at him. He met her gaze, then found himself looking at her full breasts, unrestrained by a chemise, bare beneath the cotton shirt. He felt a familiar tightening in his groin, but it was hard to look away. When he raised his eyes back to hers he saw her standing there with a frozen, startled look. Poised for flight, but mesmerized.

  He ducked his head. “Could you look at my back? Everything else is healing quickly.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Candice hesitated, wringing her hands briefly. It was one thing to have tended him while he was desperate with pain and half conscious, another to have tended him while he lay sleeping and slightly feverish. Now he looked like a healthy man, except for the slight sheen of perspiration on his brow. She thought of how she had wiped his brow many times last night with the same tenderness she would give to a hurt animal. She had forgotten, really, who and what he was. The question of leaving him had crossed her mind only once, initially, when he had come into the clearing staggering on his feet and covered with blood. It had been an instinctive reaction, the urge to flee while she could. But something had held her back—a natural compassion. It hadn’t mattered that he was part Apache and her enemy.

  She had never touched an Indian before. That thought hadn’t occurred to her since yesterday. After cleansing his wounds, the only times she had touched him was to bathe his face, as his fever had stayed low. The man had the constitution of an ox.

  She was afraid to go near him now, much less touch him.

  She knew she should have left a few hours ago, when he seemed better and she’d had the chance.

  Candice approached slowly, apprehensively, and she saw the look of contempt flash through his eyes. He shifted his back to her and she looked at the broad, hard flesh, crossed in three places with scabbing claw marks that were healing without the least sign of infection. Again, his health amazed her. “Everything is fine,” she said.

  He shifted back and looked at her. “If you get too close, I might bite.”

  She reddened, and grew angry too. “That’s not fair.”

  “No? Then stop looking at me as if I’m some kind of half-human animal.”

  She stiffened. “I haven’t …”

  “I’m a man,” he said. Then, crudely: “Surely you remember that?”

  She went even redder, thinking about how a few nights before he had stood in the smoke with his penis rigid like a stallion’s. She turned her back abruptly, trembling. She very deliberately walked to check on their dinner, trying to get those images out of her mind. It wasn’t easy.

  They ate in a tense silence, not looking at each other. He fell asleep soon after the meal, while it was still light out. She sat and studied him openly. His lips, almost full and certainly not thin, were parted slightly. Her gaze riveted there. His mouth, his face, so hard in waking, was relaxed and vulnerable in sleep. There was a growth of stubby beard, but it couldn’t detract” from his evenly sculpted features. He was part Indian, but he was a good-looking man.

  Candice blushed at the thought and resolved never to think it again.

  She didn’t understand him. He was Apache, wasn’t he? Yet he hadn’t acted like one. He hadn’t hurt her, abused her, forced himself on her. Or worse. In fact, other than the few times he had lost his temper, he had even been decent. And when he had been injured, in terrible pain, he had been so stoic …

  She abruptly tore her gaze away from him and stood. He was well on his way to health. They weren’t far from the High C. Now was the time to leave. She had owed him her life, she had paid in full. Of course, she would be stealing his horse.

  She wondered if she could be hanged for stealing a half-breed’s horse.

  The guilt could have been consuming, but she was determined, and she started tacking up the black quickly and quietly. She found herself wishing that there was another way. The stallion was no longer nervous around her; in fact, he turned to nuzzle her, pushing against her side and blowing softly. She patted him and yanked the cinch tight.