How would it end? For how many years could the Apaches hold off the whites? Already, as Cochise had pointed out, many Tonto and Coyoteros had been herded like animals and confined to reservations. Not a bodily death, but a death just the same. A death of a way of life. Of a people.
Jack knew as he rode back to town that there was only one decision to make. He had no choice. He untacked the black, then rubbed him down, giving him grain and lingering —to put off the inevitable. Finally he turned and went into the house. Candice was throwing another stick of wood on the fire. He looked at her in the pink lace nightgown with the thin silk wrapper and felt an overwhelming need for her—a need that went beyond mere desire. He wished, in that instant, that he could take back all the walls of silence between them, redo and relive every moment he had ever spent with her.
“Come on,” he said softly.
“What is it?” she asked with worry, as he led her across the room.
He didn’t answer. Standing so close to her that his thighs touched hers, he stared at her face, flushed from the fire, and thought: I don’t want to leave her, I love her. How come I’ve never told her that? His hands went to the belt of the robe and loosened it. He slid the wrapper from her shoulders.
“Jack?”
He couldn’t smile, not when this was good-bye.
“Jack?” she asked again, this time with panic as his arms drew her against him.
He was thickly erect already, the aching need coming from desperation. He kissed her softly, tenderly, his mouth slanting over hers, ignoring her stiff, unyielding form and her hands on his chest. Again, in a more panicked voice, she said, “Jack?”
And then she melted. Her arms went around his neck, fingers threading through his hair. Her response, wild and instinctively urgent, displaced the soft tenderness of his kisses, turning them hard and insistent and demanding.
He turned savage. The urgency in his heart overtook his body, and he grabbed her hips, pulling them against his long, hard arousal, rubbing against her. He invaded her mouth with his tongue, seeking, frantically seeking. He needed her, now.
It might be the last time.
They fell on the bed together, and she was caught up in his urgency and passion, tearing at his clothes. Within a moment they were naked, and he thrust into her, hard, and she cried out in surprise, but was wet and ready and eager. Jack stroked her rapidly, his mouth on hers, harder and faster, holding her, lost in this one moment, making this one memory …
“What is it?” she whispered afterward, looking up at his glazed face.
“Sshh,” he said as he kissed her.
He rolled to his side and held her, but did not relax, did not close his eyes. Instead he studied her face, drinking in her flushed beauty, the dark fans of her long lashes, the smoothly sculpted planes of her face, the swollen, red lips, now slightly parted. He leaned forward to kiss her lightly.
Her gaze became focused and worried. Jack, what is it?”
“Sshh,shijii, not now,” he hushed, his mouth covering hers again. Tonight was theirs, and nothing could change that.
The next morning Candice awoke to the unfamiliar sounds of Jack moving back and forth across the room. She sighed, stretched, and instantly remembered last night-Jack’s urgency and insatiability. She was immediately awake, sitting, the fear rushing back.
Jack was standing in the center of the room, fully dressed -and fully armed, right down to the crossed ammunition belts. On the table were his saddlebags and an extra change of buckskin clothes. Completely frozen inside, she watched him toss a cloth headband and lus warrior’s necklace onto the pile.
“You’re leaving,” she stated flatly.
He looked at her, and his gray eyes were luminous with something akin to pain. “I’m riding up to Apache Pass,” he told her.
She stared. Her heart began to thud wildly and hurtfully. “Please don’t go.”
He had flint, his loincloth, some jerky, and an extra blanket in his saddlebags. He rolled up the clothes, then donned the necklace, tucking it beneath his shirt. “You don’t understand,” he said levelly.
“Why are you going? she said. “What are you planning on doing? How long will you be gone?” Her voice cracked.
He tied on the headband. “I’m going to see Cochise.”
She gasped. “It’s too dangerous! Are you crazy? Please—Jack!”
He faced her squarely. “You don’t understand, Candice. Cochise has been betrayed. I am riding with him.”
She stared, thoroughly stunned.
He came to her and sat on the bed, touching her arm-she pulled away violently. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish there was another way.”
