A Wolf in the Desert (15 page)

Indian's soothing hands grew still. “You did what?”

“You heard me.” She tried to pull her foot from his grasp, but he wouldn't allow it. His grin was wicked, the mischief in it prodding her to admit what she hadn't intended to admit again. “All right! I dropped a plate on my stupid toe. There—” she waved a hand, dismissing her humiliation “—are you satisfied?”

His laughter was like a nighthawk on the wing, rising swiftly and strongly, then disappearing abruptly. The remnants still lingered in his voice as he whispered, “You're one of a kind, my love.”

It was just a phrase. She told herself that it meant no more than terms like “old friend,” “good buddy,” or even “dear heart.” It was just a phrase, a cliché. Her mind understood, but her heart did not. And when he bent to kiss her instep, that most sensitive part of her foot, she knew she was lost.

“Indian?”

“Shh.” He came to her, caressing the plane of her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “I know.”

He searched her face, seeking assurance for what he already knew. When she lifted her head, her full lips inviting, he groaned and took her in his arms. His kiss was swift and hard, for the night was short, and his hunger too great, too impatient. Gathering her close he lifted her from the rocks and turned toward shore.

“I'm soaked,” Patience protested. “I'll get you wet.”

“I've been wet before.” His burden light in his arms, he crossed to the trees and the flicker of their camp fire through their leaves became a beacon.

“Wet leather can't be very comfortable.” She was babbling like an idiot.

“In another minute, you won't be wearing leather, wet or dry.” He set her on her feet by the fire. Without touching her, he looked fiercely down at her. “I intend to make love to you, O'Hara. If it isn't what you want, tell me now, before it's too late.”

She wanted to refute desire, and the madness of it but she couldn't. In this place of ancient truths, she couldn't deny her own. “You already know, don't you?” Her voice was level, suddenly serene in accepting. “You've known for a long time.”

“I want to hear you say it. I need to hear you say you want me.”

Patience wished it were so uncomplicated that it was simply a matter of wanting, of lust. She wished she hadn't fallen in love so improbably with a nameless man, a stranger. But she did love him, and there was nothing that could change it. No way she could deny him.

Even trembling in dread for the payment of pain this night would surely levy, she couldn't deny him. “Love me, Indian.” She stroked his cheek, letting her fingertips trail over his lips. “Make love to me, with me, here where we have no past, and after tomorrow, no future. Love me.”

There were no words as he swept her to him. No promises, no lies as his mouth raked over hers. But there was truth in desire and passion. Silent Indian, was silent still, as he undressed her. Slipping buttons from wet silk was no chore for his sure fingers. Only his hands caressing her naked breasts expressed his pleasure. Only his tongue curling around a sun-burnished nipple, drawing it to an exquisite bud with his suckling, told of his delight.

Even when she writhed against him and pulled his head closer to her breast wanting more, demanding more, he was silent. When he backed a step away, and she reeled from the loss, he gathered her hands in his, lifting them to his lips. Patience hadn't known that her palms could be so responsive, nor that black eyes watching fiercely what each kiss and each stroke of his tongue did to her, could be so arousing. Her need was exquisite now, consuming. When she thought she could stand no more, that nothing could ever match the pleasure spiraling through her, he moved away again and, with an expert shrug, his tunic, and then his trousers, were falling in the dirt.

When he knelt to pull the last of her wet clothing from her, his lips were warm and soft as they traveled the path of each new revelation. When the leather was kicked away, when there was nothing but the light of the fire to clothe them, he stood, drinking in the sight of her.

With a hand at her hip, he pulled her against him. Molding her to him, he caressed her with the mere touch of his body. Tamping back his desires, he soothed her with his touch and began all over again the delicious, delightful passages of seduction.

There were inches of glowing skin he hadn't tasted, curves and hollows he hadn't caressed, and kisses he hadn't stolen. He had a lifetime of discoveries to make in a single night, but he wouldn't hurry.

With a sweep of his hands he measured the delicate narrow of her waist, his fingers rippled over ridges of her ribs, and curled at the edges of her breasts. Her skin was honey brown with tints of rose. Coloring rare with hair so richly auburn, yet its perfect complement. And with the added blush of the sun, so much like his own in paler hues. As he bent to suckle at a breast that bore no marks of shielding clothing, he wondered if it were a gift of the spirits that the woman he had chosen, the woman he would have, could tolerate the harshest force of his land.

The woman he had chosen. The woman he would have.
The words rang like a litany in his mind. With her sigh whispering in his ear, he blazed a trail from her breast to her throat, tallying the erratic cadence of her heart with his lips pressed to the fragrant hollow. Her hair cascaded over him, a gossamer web, seducing him, drawing him to explore the face it framed. Her features were refined and delicate, but with a subtle strength. Good bones, with angular cheeks and contouring hollows, promised lasting beauty. Her eyes were vivid and dreamy, and he could lose himself in them. But it was her mouth that enchanted him. Her mouth he must have.

His kisses were lazy and teasing, his tongue rough velvet as she opened to him. Desire smoldered, and flared, building with each kiss. She was sultry wine to be sipped, and joy to be savored. Slowly his kisses deepened, the touch of his roving hands became more sensual, more demanding. Passions soared and gentleness fled. But gentleness was no longer what Patience needed, nor Indian wanted.

The time for gentleness had long passed when he pulled her down with him to her bed of blanket-covered leaves. Lying over her, his mouth continued its yearning assault, roaming feverishly over her, tasting, learning. Giving indescribable pleasure. Taking it.

As her breath came in long, gasping shudders, and her mouth was ravenous for his, Indian pulled away to feast his eyes on the beautiful wanton he had created. She was his woman, if only for the night.

When she reached for him, he kissed her harder, deeper. Brushing the unruly tumble of bangs again from her eyes, he stared into smoldering green pools, and with a voice husky with passion that would wait no longer, he spoke at last.

His caress found her breast, and the strong, rhythm pounding beneath it. “Brave heart,” he murmured. “Dear heart.”

Then they were one flesh, one need, one desire as her breasts cushioned him and her thighs parted to receive him. When her body arched to accept his more completely, he met her fierce demands, seeking to ease the sweet torment that spiraled higher and higher, sweeter and sweeter. With a driving rhythm he plunged harder and deeper within her, taking her with him to the edge of a trembling precipice. When the building storm broke at last, and release washed over them, seething, rising, ebbing, rising again, a savage cry of triumph tore from his throat.

Patience answered, giving strength for strength and passion for passion, calling the only name she knew. “Indian.”

As flames from their campfire cast dancing shadows over canyon walls, and spirits of a lost and ancient people looked down, he took from Patience the gift of love and gave back the power of life and death.

“My name is Matthew,” he murmured into the wild tangle of her hair as he pulled her down to his quiet embrace. “Matthew Winter Sky.”

A
s evening came early to the canyon, morning came late. Fading darkness lingered in folds of deep purple and washes of delicate gray, when Patience stirred, stretching languorously, waking in delicious increments. Drowsy, lashes heavy on her cheeks, she breathed the perfumes of night-blooming flowers and wood smoke drifting on the wing of a ground-sweeping breeze. With them blended the spicy bouquet of grasses that made her bed. And on her skin, and in her hair, the clean, unadorned scent of Matthew.

Snuggling into the yielding gathering of blanketed grass, she reflected lazily on the joys of love and loving. On drifting into sleep, warm, replete, with her lover's brawny arms around her, his ardent fingers tangled in her hair. And waking to rekindled passion.

In languid grace she turned, her lashes fluttering, anticipating the first sight of him, her mouth curving, yearning for his kiss. With the delicious agony of desire rising in her, she reached out to him, his name a sigh on her lips. “Matthew.”

Her seeking hands found only emptiness. No lover slept by her side, no strong arms held her, no wonderfully knowing hands wound in her hair. For an insane moment, Patience thought she'd been drawn into the enchantment of the canyon, creating in her mind a dreamy night of love. A dream lover.

Adamantly, she rejected the notion. No dream of love could be as perfect, no dream lover as magnificent. Her body wouldn't bear delightful memories in the ache of every muscle.

Matthew was no dream.

Matthew!

Patience bolted upright, the blanket taken from his bed falling from her shoulders. Clasping it to her breasts, she turned in place slowly, surveying the camp. It seemed much as it had before. The fire burned above a heap of ashes, the dented coffeepot steamed on heated rocks. Fresh green sticks cut for another spit lay on the ground. But where was he?

“Matthew,” she called his name. The only answer given back was the echo.

Folding the blanket around her, she left her bed to wander toward the stream in search of him. Pausing at the edge of the forest she listened as the rising winds of dawn played a game of tag, tugging at the leaves of the aspen, setting them into a gossipy chatter. Over the eastern rim of the canyon the black curtain of night had given way to a purple haze. Her time in the canyon was almost ended, and with it her time with Matthew.

Suddenly she was frantic. Every moment was precious, too precious to be apart from him. Spinning, turning, the cloaked canyon becoming a bewildering kaleidoscope, she wondered where to go. Then she was running, certain he would be at the stream.

Bursting through the trees, her hair streaming wildly at her back, the blanket flapping crazily at her ankle, she halted abruptly. He knelt on the flat plane of a boulder half buried in the sand, lacing a moccasin at his knee.

“Matthew.” His name was only a whisper on a drawn breath. Verse and chorus of the lilting song that repeated itself over and over in her heart, in her mind, in every memory.

His task done, he stood with his gaze fixed on the ever-changing sky, a man as one with the solitude of a primordial land. Then, sensing that he was no longer alone, he turned. With a smile and a wave he hailed her from the edge of the stream. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” The greeting was a croak emitted from an arid throat. Her heart was pounding, her knees trembled. She didn't trust herself to say more as she waited, transfixed, as a much different Matthew loped across the rock-strewn clearing.

His hair was loose and wet, he wore only breechclout and moccasins. Obviously he'd greeted the dawn with a bath and a swim. As he approached her, his magnificently formed body agleam with clinging droplets of water, she was assailed again by myriad memories, exquisite sensations that could never be dreams. There had been men in her life, good friends and lasting friendships, but never lovers. Watching him now with desire unfolding like petals of a dew-drenched flower welcoming the morning, she wondered if there would be any who could follow him.

“Patience?”

“Yes?” Aware only that he'd spoken and she hadn't heard, she pulled the blanket tighter, stuttering, “I-I'm sorry. I didn't...”

He stopped her with three fingers pressed lightly against her mouth. “You didn't hear me,” he finished for her. Then quietly, his voice deep, intimate, “I asked if it is truly a good morning.”

“Of course.” Her fingers burrowed so deeply in the blanket they threatened the fabric. She looked away, at nothing. “Why wouldn't it be?”

He shook back his hair, impatiently. A muscle rippled in his cheek, his eyes blazed blackly. “Don't do this, O'Hara.” With thumb and forefinger, he gripped her chin. “Don't fence with me, don't act as if last night never happened. You aren't a woman who gives herself lightly, then dismisses it in the morning.”

His fingers wandered to her throat, measuring the cadence of her skittish pulse, closing around the slender column of her neck in incredibly sensuous possession. “I won't ask you if I was your first lover. Though the thought is sweet.” His voice roughened. “Sweeter than I could ever believe. But almost as sweet is knowing that if there have been others, they were few. And none in a
long, long
while.”

Her eyes clouded, her breath was lost somewhere inside her. Her mind overflowed with memories, and her heart with love for silent, stoic Indian, her keeper, her sanctuary. For Matthew, gentle Matthew, the maker of her dreams. Her first and only lover. “How could you know? How can you be so sure?”

“You told me.” He gazed down at her, so near and yet so far away. “You made me sure, with your unstudied innocence and unabashed delight. You gave yourself to me without reservation, without expectations, dear heart. As if every part of loving were new and wonderful, and enough in itself.”

Patience didn't try to pretend, she knew the answer was in her eyes. Folding her hand over his, she turned her mouth into his palm, skimming her lips over the callused flesh, before looking again into his waiting gaze. “It was new, Matthew. New and wonderful.”

Matthew forgot to breathe then, he forgot the fish lying by the stream, waiting to be spitted over the fire. He forgot everything but Patience. Then, drawing in a long, starved breath, he asked, “Where were you going just now?”

“To find you.” She didn't evade or dissemble, she couldn't. “Because I know you can only be Matthew here in the canyon, and our time is short. Because I was lonely without you.”

“Will you be sorry? When this ordeal is ended and you're back with your family in the lush, green world of the Chesapeake, will you regret the canyon? Will you regret me?”

Her heart might break, and her life couldn't be the same, but she would never regret the special moments in this special place, where, for a little time, Indian became Matthew, and Matthew her lover. Shaking her head, not trusting her voice, she managed only two assuring words. “No regrets.”

Matthew's hand slipped from her throat to the nape of her neck. Gently, with only that touch, he brought her to him. He didn't take her in his arms, but pulled her head to his chest. “I wish we'd met differently. In some other place, some other time, when I could be myself and you could know who I am and understand what I am, and why.” He raked his fingers through her hair, letting it drift over her shoulders in a rain of fire. “I wonder what might have been.”

“I know who you are. You're Matthew Winter Sky. Part Apache, part French by blood, but pure Apache in your heart. I know what you are—a gentle man, a man of honor, and far better than those you live among. I know you have purpose, and secrets you must keep.” She raised her head from his chest to look up at him. “All that I don't know is, why? And strangely, in the scope of all things, it doesn't matter.”

The weight of worry lifted from him. He'd given her so little of himself, yet as much as he dared. By some miracle, with this extraordinary woman, it was enough. “How did you grow so wise in just twenty-seven years? What gene is there in you that gives you such powers of understanding?”

“My mother is Irish, perhaps she's the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter, or my father the seventh son of the seventh son.”

“Is she? Is he?”

“No one's ever counted.”

“Never?”

“Look!” With a sweep of a blanketed arm, she pointed toward the eastern sky. Purple haze had turned to rose, and the rim of the mesa wore a halo of rubies. As they watched, the color grew more intense. Rose became garnet, and garnet crimson. The sky was aflame and seething and the canyon floor seemed to vibrate with expectation. As the sun lifted like a great ball of fire over the rim, a burst of light rained down, vanquishing the lingering remnants of night. The canyon was garbed, at last, in brilliance.

“Another day,” Matthew murmured.

“And soon, time to go.”

He caught the hand that held the blanket in place, and pried away her unresisting fingers. “Soon,” he said as the patterned square fell to the ground. “But not yet.”

“The blanket,” Patience cried as he lifted her in his arms.

“You won't need it,” Matthew growled in waiting passion. “If you're cold, I can warm you.”

“Yes.” Patience locked her arms around his neck and buried her face in his throat. “You can warm me.”

In camp, he strode past the fire that popped and sizzled in preparation for breakfast. But the only fast he needed to break was the long fast without her. Lowering her to the makeshift bed they'd shared, he paused only long enough to strip away his moccasins and breechclout before kneeling down to her. His kiss began slowly, then changed abruptly. Bittersweet yearning welled within him. He was a desperate man with desperate desires. If she'd been clothed he would have torn every garment from her in his haste. He wanted to possess her, to have her for a lifetime. And the only lifetime they had was the morning.

“Patience, I can't be gentle.”

“I know.” Clasping her fingers in his hair, she pulled his mouth to her. Her lips brushed over his, teasing, taunting, sending the madness twisting through both of them. Her breath was warm on him as she muttered hoarsely, “Nor can I.”

Then the madness was complete, and there was no need for words.

* * *

“Matthew, wait.” They'd come to the mouth of the tunnel. Patience was dressed in her scrubbed jeans and denim shirt, the leather and silk he'd given her were packed in the saddlebags with the camping equipment. Behind them every vestige of their stay had been obliterated from the canyon floor. If ever the people who had etched their story in the rocks and built homes high in the canyon walls could return, they would find their ancient home unsullied.

She looked out over the canyon, remembering glittering pools and tumbling streams; the fragrance of the morning glory heliotrope, the wild four-o'clocks. And the wonderful evening primrose that Matthew had explained would have flowers of pure white on the first evening, pale pink the second, and dark rose the third morning. She remembered sunset, and twilight, and the softness of the night. She remembered sunrise, magnificent, breathtaking sunrise. She remembered Matthew. First, and last, and always, Matthew.

She would like to come again to the canyon, yet she knew it would never be the same. Nothing in her life would be the same. But neither change nor time could take this interlude from her.

With a tremulous smile she hitched the pack she'd insisted on carrying higher on her shoulder, and turned away from the canyon. Unhurriedly, each gesture deliberate, her back stiffened, her chin lifted, her smile faded. She gripped his arm only briefly, and called his name softly. It was the last time she would ever touch him as she had in the canyon. The last time she could call him Matthew.

Drawing a long breath, she took her hand away. “I'm ready.”

Matthew watched her passage through the tunnel, slow and sure-footed. As she stepped into the blazing sun on the other side, he wondered if she realized that with that step rules and identities had changed. He hadn't cautioned her that she must be more than careful with her knowledge. His name would mean nothing to Hoke, but it would be a place to start. It wouldn't lead to The Black Watch, that trail was too deeply hidden. But his history traced to the point he dropped off public records would be proof enough that he wasn't the brigand he concocted.

One word from Patience and everything could crumble around them. As she waited on the other side, in another world, he wondered what he could say to make her understand. The endless questions plagued him. How little was enough? How much too much for her own good? His face was dark with worry as he followed her through the tunnel and into the light.

“I need to close the entrance,” he told her as he set aside the supplies he was packing out. “I'd rather the canyon stay hidden from wanderers like the Wolves. It won't take long.”

“I'll help.” Patience set her pack with his and followed as he climbed the slope of loose shale.

He whirled on her, a glowering frown knitting his brows. “Go back.”

“Dammit, Indian.” She kicked a rock in exasperation. “I'm not helpless. The blasted rock is so big an elephant would have trouble moving it, much less one very stubborn Apache. It's a miracle you moved it in the first place.”

Indian.
In all her tirade, he heard only that. A heavy weight lifted from his chest, and on the heels of relief, he felt profound regret. She called the name naturally, with no sense of strain. As if Matthew never existed.

There was bleak anger in him when he caught her by the shoulders. “Listen to me. I understand that you want to help, I know you can. I know you're not helpless, and I don't doubt you can do anything you set your mind to. But not this.”

“Tell me why.”

Releasing her, he backed away before he shook her or kissed her. Or both. “When I levered it from the entrance of the cave, the rock rested on solid ground. Now it doesn't. This shale is as unstable as thin ice. One unexpected shift and there would be an avalanche. The rock could become a directionless missile. If I have to move, it must be quickly, thinking only of myself. Please.” He touched the feather lying over her breast as it fluttered from the tie in her hair. “I can't move as swiftly as I should if you're there.”