Authors: Carol Finch
When Arakashe disappeared from sight, Rozalyn glanced uneasily about her and then swung from her pony to give her backside a much-needed rest. How long was she to await Hawk's return? What if... The thought of attack by a savage or a beast left her with unsettling sensations. She dragged her rifle from its sling and clung to it, just in case such dangers came her way.
Aimlessly, she ambled about, listening to the gurgling streams and the warble of the birds that nestled in the trees. She didn't want to think. It depressed her. Besides, she had done her fair share of contemplating during the journey and she had gained little more from her efforts than a headache.
Rozalyn sank onto the ground to survey the magnificent scenery, keeping a watchful eye for trouble. The last time she had been left alone in the wilds, she had confronted a grizzly. Now she wondered what other creatures were lurking in this vast mountain range, waiting to make her their midday meal.
A low rumble resounded about her, jolting her from her silent reverie. The sound made the ground vibrate beneath, and then a hiss followed, as if a thousand snakes had congregated to serenade her. Rozalyn shuddered. Perhaps an earthquake was about to occur, she thought. But before she could seek more solid ground, the hissing sound grew louder until it very nearly deafened her, and from the peaceful pool near which she sat, a steamy geyser erupted, shooting scalding water two hundred feet into the air. Startled and screaming for all she was worth, Rozalyn bolted to her feet and darted away before the hot mist doused her. When she was safely out of range, she wheeled around to view the bewildering jet, her eyes wide with amazement.
There was indeed such a place as Colter's Hell, where hot springs belched from the earth. She had been skeptical when she had heard the tales of the adventurers and trappers who wandered in the wilderness. But now she was a believer. She had seen and heard the eruption, and she could no longer doubt the existence of geysers and boiling springs.
"Do you still intend to mock me when I insist there is a place where water boils from the earth and rivers of steam hover about the creek beds?"
Hawk's amused voice came from so close behind her that Rozalyn very nearly jumped out of her skin. He had sneaked up on her as silently as a great cat. His stealth and the fact that he had abandoned her earlier had her temper at a roiling boil that matched the heat of the geyser spewing in the distance.
She pivoted around, her blue eyes blazing. Then, without voicing a greeting, she let fly with both barrels. "Damn you, Hawk. Have you not one shred of decency? Couldn't you have had the courtesy to inform me of your intentions before you waltzed off in the middle of the night? You can't store me in a cache in the ground as you do your supplies and pelts and then come retrieve me when the mood suits you. I do not appreciate being taken for granted.” Rozalyn's voice was becoming higher and wilder by the second. She was so annoyed with him that she had an urge to hurl something more forceful than words. Hastily she glanced about her, searching for a rock, a club, anything that might serve to pound some sense into the man who, lately, had shown himself to be as insensitive as a pine tree!
When she spotted a weapon and reached for it, Hawk quickly drew her to him, waylaying her attempt to club him with a nearby stick. "A lecture on my faults and a painful beating was not the sort of reception I had envisioned," he murmured huskily.
Rozalyn was too angry to be stifled by the velvety huskiness of his voice. She was furious at him, and had been since Hawk had trotted off, leaving her in a stockade with unruly heathens for company. Forcefully, she pushed away, refusing to be mellowed until he swore he would never pull another such inconsiderate prank.
"Don't think you can coax me into submission, Hawk Baudelair," she spun, her clenched fists resting on her hips, her wild hair tumbling about her in disarray. "Do you recall the names Dark-Eagle and Yellow-Calf? I certainly hope you don't count them among your friends! While you were waltzing about in the wilds, they sneaked into my cabin to abduct me. Not that you don't approve of such tactics," she added sourly. "After all, if you hadn't kidnapped me, I wouldn't be here in the first place." She was just gathering steam and she intended to erupt as long as the nearby geyser did. "Since I was unable to fend off both lechers, I faced rape. Arakashe came upon me and prevented it. Not that you seem to care a whit."
Hawk had been thoroughly enjoying her tantrum, watching her full breasts heave with every indignant breath she inhaled, and noting the sparks flying from her sky-blue eyes . . . until she told him about the aborted assault. At that news, his mouth compressed in a hard line.
"I do care and you damned well know it," he snapped back at her. "I have made mention of the fact several times, or has your memory escaped you?"
"My memory serves me well," Rozalyn flared, her chin tilting a notch higher so she could stare down her nose at him. "You said we would be together until the end. It is your memory lapse that concerns me, my love." The endearment sounded like a curse, and at the moment, that was exactly how Rozalyn meant it. "You are adoring and affectionate when it meets your whim, but when you crave your freedom you think nothing of stashing me in a corner and prancing off. Damnation, I could have been raped!"
"Well, at least your assailants received retribution," Hawk retored. He knew Rozalyn was right so he couldn't very well argue the point. He had been preoccupied with his troubled thoughts and he had needed the time and space in which to think, not that he had solved his dilemma, but at least he had tried. "I'm sure my grandfather saw to it that your molesters were buried neck-deep in ant hills."
"Like hell! Arakashe didn't bother with torture. He only banished the drunken trappers from the Crow lands. I personally would have had them shot, but I was given no say in the matter. The Crow chief then had me deposited on a horse and herded away although I insisted I had no inclination to accompany him."
A bemused frown plowed Hawk's brow. Arakashe must be growing soft in his declining years, he mused. At one time the chief would have such offenders strung upside down or buried in the ground and left for the ants. It seemed he had become more tolerant of the Longknives. Perhaps that was because Hawk was half-white. Why else would Arakashe have spared the lives of Dark-Eagle and Yellow-Calf?
While Hawk was attempting to analyze the chiefs actions, Rozalyn hurried on, refusing to be derailed from her train of thought. "And that is another matter that infuriates me. I do not appreciate being carted off by a party of Indians and detained in a camp in which I can converse with only one member of the tribe. Thank heavens Arakashe speaks English! At least when he spared me the time I could communicate with him, unlike the chief of the Sioux who didn't have the faintest idea what I was ranting about!" Rozalyn inhaled deeply and then plunged on, incensed that Hawk had broken into a smile. "Don't you dare speak of love when you merely consider me a convenient object of your lust! I have had enough of your contradictions. If I truly mean something to you, why did you abandon me for two weeks when you know our days are numbered? Bear-Claw taught me to survive in this wilderness but you leave me behind to traipse off only God knows where!"
"Are you finished?" Hawk raised a dark eyebrow and then bit back a chuckle when Rozalyn glared at him.
"Not quite," she fumed, taking a bold step forward to shake a dainty finger in his face. "I have thought it over, and I have decided to return to the fort to await my father's arrival. You seem to be satisfied with your self-imposed isolation. Far be it from me to make you drag me along with you when you appear content to hunt and trap the Yellowstone alone."
Actually, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Rozalyn suddenly realized the future would be easier to bear if she left Hawk while she was angry with him. It had to be less difficult to get over loving him if they parted on a sour note. Besides, it was useless to live on false hope. She had known that in the beginning, and Arakashe's wise words about the scarcity of happy endings preyed heavily on her mind. Perhaps she would be attacked by a bear during her return journey and put out of her misery.
When Rozalyn wheeled around to stalk toward her pony, Hawk's quiet words halted her in her tracks, melting her ire and spoiling any chance of surviving the future without a bleeding heart. "Roz, I do love you. I always have," Hawk told her, his tone so soft and sincere that Rozalyn wilted like a dainty flower in the blistering sun. "Maybe I was inconsiderate, but I had to be alone to attempt to devise a way to keep my promise to the other trappers and still have you with me after rendezvous. I came to the Yellowstone to think, not to avoid you. God, don't you know I would rather be in your arms than staring up at a sea of stars that never shine as brightly as when you send me on a journey among them?" Steadily, he approached her, filling her world, letting her view the raw emotion in his eyes, and his craggy features mellowed in a smile. "Loving you has made me vulnerable, can't you see that? There was a time when I didn't consider the future. I only took each day as it came. But now there's you, and that has made all the difference. I made a bargain with your father, a vow to the trappers. I am obliged to keep both, but my honor is the source of my torment." Hawk expelled a heavy sigh as he lifted a hand and brushed his thumb across the satiny texture of her cheek. "I came here in search of a solution that would allow me to keep my promise without giving you up. But if there is one, I am too blind to see it. Perhaps, I am too emotional where you are concerned to uncover it."
Ever so slowly, his arms surrounded her, molding her soft feminine flesh to his hard, male contours, and for a moment Hawk was content merely to hold her, to fill the emptiness of a fortnight of wanting. "Don't leave me, Roz. There is so little time left when I had hoped for an eternity with you. I prayed during the two weeks I was without you, prayed that a way to keep us together would be revealed to me. But each solution that came to me only created more problems. I considered kidnapping you again after I bargained with your father, but that would only make him furious. He would send the cavalry after me, and we would be forced to live like hunted animals, running, afraid of our own shadows. I even considered sacrificing my friends in a desperate attempt to keep you. They, above all, would understand. But your father will not contemplate any compromise without your return. I doubt that all the money I could offer him would sway him, not if it meant leaving you with a man he despises with every part of his being."
"I'm sorry," Rozalyn murmured, her eyes welling up with tears. "I had no right to hurl petty complaints at you. I was angry and I was lashing out at an impossible situation. Oh, Hawk, make this month we have together last an eternity. Make me forget the world will come to an end at rendezvous."
Rozalyn curled her arms around his granite shoulders, clinging to his solid strength, and when his fiery emerald eyes focused on her quivering lips, she parted them invitingly. Silky ebony strands spilled down her back, as she tilted her head upward, granting him free access to her soft mouth.
"This was the sort of greeting I had in mind," he whispered huskily, his arms tightening about her.
"I only hope I can compete with the mystical mermaids of the spirit springs," she taunted, her body moving provocatively against his and sending delicious sensations trickling down his spine. "No doubt, you have turned to them for comfort these past two weeks."
"There are no such creatures as mermaids," Hawk heard himself say through a cloudy haze of steamy passion.
"Beware, skeptic. I no longer doubt, and now is not the time for you to start," Rozalyn purred as her adventurous hands slid beneath his buckskin shirt to make arousing contact with the lean muscles of his belly. "We stand on the very spot where Hell bubbles up, where gurgling rivers soar into the sky. If underground springs can pour down like rain, one should never question the existence of a creature half-woman and half-fish."
When her lips melted against his like a thirst-quenching sip of wine, Hawk lost all interest in conversation. The knot of longing within him unfurled, and desire channeled through his every nerve and muscle. Eager to appease the gnawing craving that had
tormented him for two weeks, Hawk clutched Rozalyn to him, overwhelmed by a need as ancient as time itself. Still, he couldn't get close enough to the flame that was burning him alive. His kiss devoured, savored, the intoxicating taste of her. His hands roamed over her flesh, hungry to touch, to arouse, to satisfy. As a muffled groan erupted from his laboring chest, the earth trembled beneath him.
When another nearby geyser erupted, Rozalyn was jolted back to reality. The ground beneath her feet was actually quivering, this was not just a response to Hawk's lovemaking. Her wide eyes followed the path of water that shot into the air like a cannonball, leaving a steamy spray in its wake, and when Hawk's soft laughter vibrated against the trim column of her throat, she smiled.
"And all this time I thought you were the cause of my uncontrollable quaking," she teased, as she laid her head against his shoulder to watch the display of Yellowstone's natural fountain.