“I heard you, and I’ve already told you, it was one time with Datiye, before we met. I’m not going to bother repeating myself again.” He gave her a long look. “Most women would look the other way and be happy their husband had stayed with them.”
“I am not most women.”
“I fully realize that. Look, Candice, no more games, and don’t even think of flirting with Cochise.”
“I don’t consider this a game,” she flared. “Being abducted, carrying your child, living with the enemy—with another woman pregnant by you? It’s no damn game, Jack!”
He strove for control and found it. “I don’t know how we got on this topic,” he said tightly. “I can’t stop this damn war, but I would if I could. You know the rest of my plans—it’s just a matter of time. Maybe if you try to trust me you’ll see things aren’t so bad—and they could actually get better.”
Candice kept her mouth shut. He would have to work to win her trust, and that was that. He didn’t deserve even that much from her.
“I expect … no, I’m asking you if you would mind helping out around here. There’s plenty to do. Food needs to be prepared, dried for extra rations, buckskins need to be mended, hides tanned. It’s not right that Datiye work to feed four.”
Candice was about to protest, but decided against it. She needed to occupy herself. “I’ll help, but I won’t do anything with her. Just point me in the right direction.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” Jack muttered.
She spent the next week doing various chores—including a full day boiling white flowers from the yucca that Datiye had collected on a communal gathering expedition. The flowers were boiled with meat and bones. Some was for immediate consumption, and the rest were dried and stored, as were almost all surplus foodstuffs. Other yucca buds were opened and dried to be used as sweeteners for the herbs Apaches used as tea.
Another gathering expedition went out at the end of the week. The women were on foot; a few braves—including Jack—on horseback, to provide protection if necessary. Extra pack animals accompanied them. Both Datiye and Candice went. The stalks and crown of the mescal plant were gathered on this trip. Candice stayed away from Datiye, and while the other women could not speak her language, they were neither friendly nor rude, making signs when necessary to communicate when she had missed a plant. She actually enjoyed herself. The sun was warm and felt glorious. She relished the feel of using her strong body again, for she had never been one to be idle. And she was aware of Jack’s eyes almost always on her. Protectively. She actually looked forward to the next gathering expedition, which Jack told her would be for sumac berries, locust tree blossoms, and wild onions in the summer.
The mescal were roasted or pit-baked, Datiye preferring the latter, before being sun-dried and preserved with mescal juice. This reminded Candice of the afternoon she had helped Luz wrap cakes made of ground mescal at Shozkay’s camp, and it saddened her. There was no change in Luz. As for Datiye and Candice, their duties threw them together gradually, and while they never spoke to each other, they found themselves working side by side on more than one occasion.
Candice slept with Savage every night in his bedroll. They seemed to be in another delicate truce. She longed for his touch. She was a woman meant to be loved, in all senses of the word, and at night her need for him kept her up long past their bedtime. But he didn’t make love to her. In fact, he would not even hold her until after she had fallen asleep, and Candice knew that he sometimes did so only because if she ever awoke in the middle of the night they were firmly ensconced in each other’s embrace. Yet, when she awoke in the morning, he was always up and. gone.
She hadn’t exactly forgiven him for forcing her to live with his people, or for Datiye, but she had come to accept what could not be changed, for the time being. Then, about ten days after her arrival in the Apache camp, Luz died.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Jack was relieved. It had been so hard watching Luz slip away bit by bit, day after day. She passed on in her sleep. It was Datiye who found her that way. Two women, Luz’s cousin and sister-in-law, came to help Datiye prepare her for burial. They took her away to bathe and dress her.
“Are you all right?”
He turned to look at Candice. He wanted comforting, wanted her to hold him, love him. Instead he nodded abruptly and walked away. To think and grieve, although in truth he had little grief left to give.
He wandered down to a secluded glade by the creek, clad only in a loincloth and moccasins, and perched on a boulder, the sun warming his bare torso. It was still hard to accept that Shozkay was gone—that was harder than accepting Luz’s self-willed death. He thought of his wife. Incredibly, she had adapted, or appeared to have adapted. He knew she hadn’t forgiven him for getting Datiye pregnant, but she seemed to have accepted it, and he was hopeful that that was the first step in the direction of understanding and forgiveness. Somehow, someday, he wanted them to be able to put all this behind them and live as friends and lovers, man and wife. And he wondered if it would ever be possible.
Of course, she still hated Datiye. Or maybe hate was too strong a word. He always felt uneasy when he left the two of them alone at some task, dreading that he would return to find a dead woman and a battered victor. He wondered how long they could go on not speaking to each other.
And, of course, Datiye hated Candice. Even more than vice versa, although Candice didn’t realize it. Datiye knew her position as Jack’s wife was solely because of the child, while Candice was his wife because he loved her. There was also the fact that Candice chose to make blatant her claim on him by sleeping with him in his bedroll every night. Now, that was torture. And getting worse day by day. He was afraid one night he’d wake up and find himself Coupling with his wife in the middle of the camp. It would be the height of bad taste, worse, a loss of face.
Just thinking about it made him hard.
He had carefully kept away from several divorced women who had made it known they would be only too happy to cheer him up while he was burdened with two pregnant wives. Not that he wanted any of them, he truly didn’t, but the last thing he needed was for Candice to stumble across him while he was being propositioned, as he had been yesterday by Gaage. She was very young, recently widowed, but apparently not grieving. She had given himcoylooks on several occasions. Yesterday she had intercepted him on his way back from bathing and had engaged him in a conversation. When he had cut it short, she had grabbed him and rubbed herself against him. There were some things a man couldn’t avoid, especially after a couple of weeks of denial, and a physical reaction to a warm female body was one of them. Thank all thegansCandice had not chosen that moment to appear. He had sent Gaage away with unequivocal words, but he had the unhappy feeling she would be back.
He heard a noise behind him and felt himself grow grim. He was sure it was her, come to tempt him again. He started when he saw Candice.
She paused uncertainly at the base of an ancient oak. He tried not to look at her as if he were starving, but she was incredibly beautiful, and he could not be unaffected looking at her. Especially when she was carrying his child.
“Jack?” She came forward.
He wanted her touch. He stiffened. “Candice, I need to be alone,” he said, but his voice was husky. He stared out at the creek, but was intensely aware of her having stopped behind him. He felt her hands on his shoulders. They slid up to his neck, firm, kneading, then dropped. She walked around the rock to his side. Her eyes were big, navy blue, sad.
“I feel sad too,” she murmured.
He looked at her. Then, simultaneously, he reached out for her and she leaned against him, wrapping her arms around him. They held each other, rocking slightly, hearts beating together. He closed his eyes and pressed his face against her silken hair. Somehow she was standing between his thighs. She leaned fully into him, her thigh pressing against his thick arousal.
She looked up.
