“I want to be alone,” Candice said. How could he do this to her?How?Didn’t he know he was breaking her heart irreparably? She couldn’t take any more.
“Candice.” He took her shoulders. “I intend to find Datiye another husband after the baby is born. I swear. Just bear with me. Bear with this. Just for a little while.”
She couldn’t answer. There was no answer to make. She shrugged him off and strode into thegohwah. Datiye was there arranging a bed of hides. “Get out,” Candice said.
“Don’t order me around,” Datiye returned, her eyes flashing.
“Get out before I kill you!” Candice shouted, all her frustration and fury spewing.
Jack opened the canvas door. “Come on, Datiye, leave Candice alone for a while.” He pulled her out. His brow was wet with perspiration.
“I don’t want to sleep with her in there,” Datiye told him rigidly.
He couldn’t take it. “Fine,” he said. “Sleep in the woods for all I care!”
Datiye sat down in a huff, grabbing the basket of yucca stems, rootstocks, and tule shoots. She began sorting them angrily.
“Here,” Nahilzay said from behind him, laughing. “You need this.”
Jack started, then saw the proffered gourd. He took a few heavy drafts of thetiswin, wishing it were the strongertulapai. “Christ!” he said, wiping his mouth.
“Forget the white god. You better say some prayers to thegans.”Nahilzay grinned. “Maybe the shaman knows a dance to help you.”
“I don’t think prayers will help me through this one,” Jack said. He looked at Nahilzay. “Hey, my friend. How would you like a wife?” Nahilzay was in his thirties and unwed.
Nahilzay’s grin grew wider. “Sun Daughter would warm my bed of hides nicely.”
Jack shot him a look. “No. Datiye. She is obedient and eager to please.” He stole a look at her, but he had lowered his voice and she hadn’t heard. “Very good to look upon. Good in the bed of hides too.” He smiled encouragingly.
Nahilzay just laughed and walked away.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Candice knew she still loved him.
Just as she knew he was not worthy of her love.
She had stopped crying, finally, and lay on the third bed, her face pressed against the fur of one of the hides. She didn’t know how her heart could be so stupid. Worse, even her mind was trying to betray her, thinking, What if he was telling the truth?
She couldn’t sort it out. Bringing her there against her will, where the evidence of his infidelity—or at least his virility—with another woman was before her very eyes? It was too much for any woman to take. He had deserted her, turned against her people. He was the enemy, and the father of her child—his bastard. She didn’t know what to do.
Get rid of Datiye, she thought viciously.
He had said that after Datiye’s baby was born he would marry her off to another man. Had he meant it? Still, that didn’t resolve the problem of now, or all the other problems. She would not share even his name with Datiye. She didn’t give a damn if that was the Apache way. She would be better off at home than to be so humiliated by Datiye’s pregnant presence.
Or would she?
The thought of going home pregnant, with his child, still frightened her to no end. But now the prospect seemed infinitely preferable to biding her time until she could get to St. Louis. In fact, St. Louis had been the farthest thing from her mind since Jack had returned. God, what should she do?
What could she do?
She knew her mind could go round and round all night over her dilemma, but it wouldn’t change anything. She was stuck in this godawful Apache camp, behind enemy lines, pregnant, with a rival, and that was that. If only she could turn her love into hate—or indifference.
She started when the canvas flap swung open and someone stepped inside thegohwah. At first she thought it was a stranger, and she stared at the gaunt, bony woman with the ragged cropped hair. The squaw was obviously ill, and did not even look at her, but lay down on her back, staring up at the ceiling with vacant eyes.
Candice stared. The woman’s face was scarred with thin pink lines from temple to jaw on either side, as if she had been clawed. There were the same kinds of scars on her forearms. Then she realized the woman had green eyes, and she cried out in shock, for it was Luz.
“Luz, what’s wrong?” Candice cried, dropping to her knees at her side. “Luz? Good God, what happened? What’s happened to you?”
