Twelfth Moon (5 page)

Jonah knew what the kid was doing, could sense his apprehension in talking about what had happened. He also knew he shouldn’t be grilling him for information without a lawyer present. But the kid did admit to the crime, so what harm could there be in telling the rest of the story? It was going to be a long trip to New Orleans, which would give him plenty of chances to find out the details. He decided to answer the kid’s question. “After the war ended, a friend of mine asked if I wanted a steady job.”

“What did you do in the war?” Cadence was suddenly curious about his past. She also couldn’t help but notice the way the muscles in his thighs tensed and bulged as he handled his horse with the ease of an expert. He was a riveting figure, she thought, taking in his physical masculine beauty . . . his dark hair, thick and wild, barely tamed by the Stetson on his head. The proud bones and angles of his rugged face. His firm, sensual mouth. His strong, vital body. His mesmerizing, steel-toned eyes.

Unaware of her appraisal of him and apparently not in the mood to dredge up old memories, Jonah gave a terse answer. “I did what I had to do…what most people had to during the war.”

“Did you kill a lot of men?” Cadence sensed his sadness and regret when he thought about that time in his past. She only wanted to understand him better.

Misinterpreting Cade’s interest, Jonah stopped his horse, his silver eyes boring coldly into hers. “Why do you want to know, because you missed out on it? It wasn’t adventurous or glorious or honorable – it was hell on earth, and you’re lucky to have missed it.”

Cadence sat for a moment, stunned by his outburst. And then suddenly she understood what had brought on his angry words. He thought she was boy with romantic notions of the glories of war. She snorted, disgusted by the very idea. “That’s not why I asked. I just wondered about you, why you would choose this profession, after what you must have experienced in the war. Of course, you could have just been a clerk, sitting behind a desk.” Her lips tilted up in a smirk.

Jonah’s expression relaxed a little at the obvious jibe. So, the kid had a sense of humor. He seemed intelligent and mature for being so young. Somehow, it didn’t fit. There was definitely something odd about him. “I wasn’t a clerk. I rode with a special unit, working reconnaissance, gathering intelligence, dealing with the opposition using…ah, lethal tactics.”

A shiver ran up Cadence’s spine. He’d been some kind of spy. No wonder he’d been able to track her so well. He was definitely a dangerous man, yet she detected nothing malicious about him. His nature wasn’t a violent one, but he could become a force to be reckoned with if provoked. She imagined he wouldn’t back down from a fight worth fighting, and that he knew the difference.

“We’ll stop here for the night.” Jonah dismounted and led the horses to a protective ledge of low, flat boulders. The smooth rock, curved in the shape of a crescent, offered a shield against the light wind that had kicked up.

Cadence stiffly climbed down from her horse, stumbling as her aching joints protested. The air was cooling, now that the sun had begun to set and she shivered again, only this time it was caused by the temperature, not by Jonah’s past.

He ordered her to sit on one of the warm rocks while he took care of the horses. It felt good, the stone’s heat seeping into her muscles, soothing her aches. She was nodding off when his voice jerked her awake. “I’m going to have to hunt down our supper tonight.” He untied her hands and she rubbed her wrists, trying to ease the soreness.

It was only to be a short reprieve, she realized, when he produced a pair of shiny, silver handcuffs. “My rations are low, so we’ll have to make them last for a couple more days.” When she didn’t respond, he continued. “I need to secure you, first.”

The orange light from the setting sun reflected off the cuffs in a haphazard pattern as they dangled in his hand. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she said, “I promise I won’t run. You don’t need to truss me up like a Christmas goose every time you turn your back on me.”

Her comment forced a soft chuckle from him. “Not so much like a Christmas goose, but a wily coyote. I spent enough time tracking you down. I’m not about to let you slip through my fingers, now that I have you. Sometime soon, you’ll have to tell me how you evaded me for so long.”

Now that I have you.
Cadence was finding it more and more difficult to
not
notice how very male Jonah was. And regardless of what she’d been through with his brother, the urge to mate while in her cycle would overshadow any fears she might now have.

She looked up at the three-quarter moon, glowing silvery-blue in the clear, darkening sky. Soon, it would be full, but more significantly, it would mark a year’s passing. Her need to mate would be at its peak then.

Cadence was tempted to show him the Pantera. What a shock it would be, for him to see her change into a large panther right before his eyes! But she feared Jonah’s reaction, feared what would happen if he were to attempt to re-capture her. The memory of what she’d done to his brother was too fresh in her mind and she didn’t want a repeat of that awful night.

She glanced away from the swinging handcuffs. “Fine, but be quick about it, I’m hungry.”

There was an old tree nearby, which seemed more dead than alive, its bare branches looking like a bunch of old bones stuck together. Jonah clasped one end of the handcuffs to the Cade’s wrist, the other to a low-hanging branch that was high enough to force him to stand. It would make it harder for him to escape.

Jonah quickly gathered kindling to light a fire that would keep any wild creatures away from the camp while he was gone. With a bit of luck, he’d trap one of them for their supper, and they’d be eating something other than dried jerky tonight.

As he performed those familiar tasks, his thoughts centered on Cade, who mutely watched him from his position beneath the tree. One arm was raised to just above shoulder level.

The kid had admitted to killing Robert, but the facts just didn’t add up. Jonah had read the report, had visited the rented flat where his brother’s body had been found. Robert had sustained claw-like gashes mostly in his chest. There’d been a lot of blood, the stains on the rug attesting to that fact, bringing to mind an animal attack. Only a very large and dangerous animal could have caused that level of carnage, so what weapon was used to inflict those kinds of injuries?

By the time Jonah had received word of Robert’s death, and was able to return to New Orleans, his family had already claimed the body. At least he’d been there for the funeral.

Afterward, the only trail Jonah had found was the one belonging to Cade. Earlier, he’d said he’d been defending himself, that Robert was hurting him. Maybe it was the woman Robert had been hurting and Cade had simply been protecting her, which wasn’t necessarily a hanging offense.

Robert had always been a little bit mean, even as a child, but he was still Jonah’s brother and he’d loved him. Jonah had done his best to steer Robert on the right path, to instill the same sense of duty and honor Jonah had always felt passionate about.

But it seemed the war had dug its fingers even deeper into Robert’s troubled heart, twisting his mind with sickness. He’d hidden it well from their parents and sister, but Jonah had faced his own demons during the war, and knew a man’s madness was often mirrored in their eyes. Robert’s had been like that.

Cade’s eyes were like that.

The boy was too young to have experienced the war, but every so often, Jonah would catch a strange look in Cade’s eyes, as if he’d seen more than most people – horrible things. There was a moment, when he’d first risen this morning, when Cade’s mossy stare seemed to bore right into Jonah’s most sordid memories, his deepest emotions. And then, tonight, while Jonah had dangled the handcuffs in front of him, those eyes had burned with an unearthly green fire – but just for an instant, and then it was gone. Was it his imagination, or was something not quite right with that kid?

At times, the boy seemed entirely too fragile to have committed such a bloodthirsty act. But then a steely underpinning would emerge – a strong will that showed in his stubbornness, his refusal to go down without a fight. He
had
made it through a hanging, after all – well, near hanging, anyway.

Jonah rose from a crouch beside the now blazing fire. It was close enough to the tree to radiate heat there. His gaze focused on the kid. He watched the flickering light and shadow play over Cade’s inert form. The boy stood eerily still, as though anchored to the ground by the same roots as that ancient tree. Those intense eyes almost appeared to glow like an animal’s when caught in a stream of light. Then the boy blinked and cast his gaze downward, a soft sigh shuddering through his body.

Snorting inwardly at his fanciful notions, which were probably just caused by a trick of the growing shadows, Jonah set off into the deepening twilight. “I won’t be long.”

Cadence breathed a sigh of relief. There’d been a moment there, when she’d felt drawn to Jonah, a spark of sexual awareness settling in her core. He was strong and tall and handsome enough to take her breath away. He’d moved with a masculine grace that titillated the senses and only emphasized the leashed power in his long limbs. She’d wanted him with a greed she’d never experienced before. Was it the cycle of Twelfth Moon, or something entirely unacceptable, such as a naturally occurring attraction? What was she going to do?

She had to escape.

There was no way she would allow herself to mate with a man she hardly knew, let alone the one man who happened to hate her, whose only mission in life was to see her hang for the murder of his brother. If she didn’t find a way to escape soon, she’d be mauling him – but as a woman, not as the panther.

Her mind crowded with one idea after another. As each one presented itself, she discarded it as either ill conceived, or too risky.
Damnation!
She couldn’t think with the remnants of blood-pounding desire still thrumming through her veins.

And her shoulder ached from her arm being suspended for so long. The rest of her body wasn’t much better off. Her feet hurt, her throat still felt raw inside as well as out, and her temples had begun to throb.

Feeling edgy and frustrated, she resigned herself to the fact that there was nothing she could do at the moment. She would just have to wait until the right moment and be ready to act.

Just as her stomach growled an angry protest, Jonah silently stepped through the curtain of darkness that surrounded the camp like a wraith from the netherworld.

Even her highly attuned panther senses hadn’t detected his approach. His skill at stealth was another testimonial to his ability as a tracker. She harbored no doubts he’d made a formidable enemy to the opposition during the war and now, as a U.S. Marshal.

It would take extreme cunning on her part to elude him once she escaped.

JONAH RETURNED WITH A brace of three small rabbits, enough to provide a satisfying meal. He moved to throw a log onto the fire, his gaze taking in the camp, confirming everything was as he’d left it. His sharp hearing hadn’t missed Cade’s grumbling stomach as he’d cleared the perimeter, and he had to suppress a smile. The kid was probably starving by now. Jonah also hadn’t missed the way the kid wobbled wearily on his feet.

He tossed the rabbits on the ground near the fire, and then went to the horses for the bedrolls and the rest of the gear. Once the blankets were unrolled, Jonah moved toward the kid, digging in his front pocket for the key to the handcuffs. He released Cade’s wrist, and then the other end from the branch, returning the key to his pocket. Jamming the cuffs into a back pocket, he said, “Go sit down on one of those blankets by the fire while I clean the rabbits.”

Without a word, Cade followed his orders, walking stiffly toward the blankets, plunking down onto his rump. Jonah went to work gutting and skinning the rabbits. When he was finished he placed them on a spit above the fire. His mouth watered in anticipation. He glanced over at Cade, noticing the kid’s averted gaze, his shallow breathing, and even behind all the dirt and grime, the pallor of his face.

“What’s the matter, kid, you gonna be sick?”

“I’ll be fine,” Cade said, his voice still sounding a bit hoarse.

Jonah’s gaze flicked to the rabbits, their meat juices dropping with tantalizing sizzles into the flames, then quickly back to Cade. “Don’t you like rabbit meat?”

“I like it.” The kid swallowed hard. “I just don’t care much for the cleaning of them.”

A suspicion wormed its way into Jonah’s mind. Was it the blood? Gutting an animal wasn’t exactly a pretty sight, but was a common enough practice if a man had to eat. He recalled the scene of his brother’s murder, the tortured look he’d caught mirrored in the kid’s eyes from time to time.

And then there was the matter of the woman. Could it have been his mother, or a sister? “I read the official report,” Jonah said, his gaze steady on the boy’s face, watching for any change in his expression. “There was mention of a woman. Who was she?”

The kid blinked once, hesitating slightly before answering. “There was no woman, only me.”

That blink was telling, as was the almost imperceptive flash in those green eyes. He was lying. “So, why would witnesses say there was a woman if there wasn’t?”

Cade shrugged his shoulders. “How would I know? People can be pretty stupid sometimes.”

Jonah gave no response to that, allowing a tense silence to fall between them.

Finally, Cade made a sound of disgust, saying, “It was just me, all right? There was no other woman, just me and your brother and he was—” He choked to a halt.