Jack went to Hayilkah’s’sgohwah, where Shozkay left him. Taking a deep breath, he opened the flap. He saw her sprawled on the bed of hides, on her stomach, naked beneath the top covering. It was an old Apache trick to keep captives naked so they wouldn’t run away, but a terrible feeling swept him, and he was inside, kneeling beside her, his hand in her tangled, knotted hair. “Candice! Candice?Shijii, it’s me. Wake up.”
He stroked her back, and she moved. He put his arm beneath her, pulling her almost into his lap, cradling her. She moaned, then her eyes shot open, and she cried, “No!” her fingers turning into claws, going for his eyes. Jack grabbed her wrists.
She yelped in pain and he released them, horrified when he saw that her wrists were scabbed and bloody and oozing pus. “It’s all right now,” he whispered, his hold tightening.
“Jack.” She gasped, clinging to him.
He held her tighter, turning his face into her hair. He stroked her hair and rocked her as if she were a child. She clung to him harder. “Jack, take me away from here, please.”
“I will get you out of here,” he promised, his hands sliding up and down her back. He was too aware of the woman in his arms. He did not tell her just how he was planning to free her.
“I was hoping … praying,” she said into his shirt.
“What?”
“Praying you would come.” She looked up, her eyes glistening with tears.
Of course I would come. “Are you all right?”Did they hurt you?
She shook her head, her nose red. A tear fell. “I’m so afraid.”
“I know.”
She stared into his eyes and suddenly became aware of their position—that she was in his arms, naked except for the blanket, that his hard chest was pressing against her soft bosom and it was all wrong. But it didn’t feel wrong. It didn’t feel wrong at all.
He read her thoughts and rose, putting some distance between them.
“No, don’t go,” Candice begged, holding on to one buckskin-clad knee.
Jack’s jaw tightened. “I have to go.”
“Please,” she protested, anguished.
He took a breath, a loud sound in the small space of thegohwah. She belonged to Hayilkah, so he had no choice but to leave—as hard as it was.
“Don’t go,” Candice said, as he walked, stooped, to the entrance of thegohwah. “Jack! Don’t leave me here! Please!”
Jack tensed and ducked out. He heard her soft, muffled sobs behind him—and they echoed in his mind all day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
He was here.
And, strangely, knowing that he was here reassured her and dimmed the hysteria that had been growing.
She could barely believe it. The coincidence was too great—that he would appear here after she was taken prisoner. Or, maybe—and she shuddered with the thought—he had been a part of the war party but had not returned with the band, had scouted ahead or lingered behind. She remembered with utter clarity how he had killed the three cowboys who had staked out the Apache boy. How he had said that vengeance was the Apache way. She hugged herself.
It would do not to forget who and what he was.
But … before, when he had found her on the desert, he hadn’t hurt her. And she was even ashamed now for what her thoughts had been. Not that she exactly trusted him—but neither did she mistrust him. After being treated so brutally and carelessly by Hayilkah, as if she were some piece of meat, the contrast with how Jack had treated her was stunning. He hadn’t hurt her, hadn’t made her ride for days and days without food and water, hadn’t shoved her around, hadn’t even touched her—not like Hayilkah.
She couldn’t suppress a shiver of fear. He had said he would help her. She prayed it would be soon. She was afraid of Hayilkah, afraid he would come to her again, tonight, and this time rape her. Panic started an insidious creeping.
She became aware of the fact that several Apaches had gathered not far from thegohwah—she could hear them talking excitedly, although she couldn’t understand a word they said. But she was feeling a little braver because Jack was in the camp, so she crept quickly to the entrance of the gohwah and raised the hide flap.
There was quite a commotion going on twenty feet away. The tall, handsome Apache who had explained her circumstances to her last night, in English, was there, holding Jack’s black stallion, which was bridled but bareback. The stallion was prancing in agitation, corded muscles rippling and gleaming, and he champed at his bit, frothing. He lashed out with a lethal hind leg, and someone cried out and jumped away. The Apache and the stallion were surrounded, but cautiously, by perhaps twenty other. Apaches, both male and female. One of them was Hayilkah.
In fact, the tall Apache was speaking to an older couple standing next to her captor, and he was grinning and listening avidly to every word. The old, fat woman resembled Hayilkah. His mother? Hayilkah laughed. The tall Apache led the black through the group, which parted immediately before his path. He took the black to a tree, where he tied him. The stallion didn’t look like he was going to stay put for very long.
