A Wolf in the Desert (3 page)

She knew then she would try to escape. Her chances of making it were slim, but she'd rather face an inevitable fate knowing she'd tried, rather than regretting that she hadn't. And if she made it? Being lost in the desert was better than being found by these creatures. Snakes that crawled were preferable to those who walked and called themselves wolves.

Her chance came sooner than she expected. In the flush of victory Blue Doggie's confidence bloomed, making him careless. His hand rested at the nape of her neck, his fingers curled only loosely around the slim column. As he herded her into the darkness he stumbled again, losing his tenuous hold as he fell to one knee.

A second taste of freedom spurred Patience into action. Before he could climb to his feet, she planted her feet, locked her hands in a club of flesh and bone, and swung with all her might. The double-fisted blow that shattered her watch caught the kneeling Blue Doggie under the chin, the fragile bones of his throat absorbing the brunt. With a quiet wheeze he went down face-first like a felled ox.

Patience waited only long enough to strip the chain from his wrist and cast a quick glance to be sure no one had seen. No one had. They were too interested in plundering the Corvette. She turned to run, and had taken three steps when a hand captured her arm in an iron grip.

“Leaving us so soon, Red? When the party in your honor has just begun?” a familiar, melodious voice inquired.

The seventh rider. The one she'd forgotten.

She opened her mouth to scream, then clamped it shut. Scream? For whom? Who was there to help her? Silently, counting surprise as her best weapon, she launched herself at him. Battering with her free hand, scratching, biting, she fought wildly and desperately to escape the imprisoning hold.

“Stop. You're only going to hurt yourself.” The command was a quiet entreaty. When she didn't obey, she found herself enveloped in a close embrace. Her captor held her surely but gently against his bare chest. His arms were taut, his body hard and lean. He smelled pleasantly of wood smoke and evergreen. For a moment Patience was lulled by a strange sense of security.

“I have you now,” he murmured against her hair as she quieted. “I mean you no harm.”

“Liar!” she snarled, rejecting the kindness she heard. She could trust no one, would trust no one. In a resurgence of angry desperation she clawed at his chest and kicked his shins, taking bitter satisfaction in his nearly silent grunt of pain.

“Dammit, wildcat.” He caught her in a rib-crushing hold. To take a deep breath would crack bones. “Do you want me to give you back to the others?”

Patience couldn't move, couldn't breath, still she wouldn't surrender. Lifting her head, she glared up at her captor. In moonlight he was the most handsome man she'd ever seen. But even evil could be pretty. “Let me go,” she demanded. “You're hurting me.”

“Only because you make me hurt you.” He bent nearer, eyes that could only be black bored into hers. “Listen to me, believe me. I mean you no harm.” He searched her face. “Will you believe me?”

She was off-balance, unsure. “I don't know.”

“If I let you go, will you not fight me?”

Patience didn't answer. She looked at Blue Doggie lying in the dirt, at the others squabbling over her possessions. What choice did she have but to give a conditional agreement. “Let me go, I won't fight you.”

He didn't release her. “Tell me your name.”

“My name?” She looked once more into the handsome face. “What does it matter?”

“Tell me your name,” he insisted softly.

“Patience,” she snapped. “Patience O'Hara.”

“Give me your word you won't fight me, Patience O'Hara.”

“What is this? Honor among scum?”

“Honor, yes, between you and me.” His gaze was a black laser, leaving no hint of expression undiscovered. “Your word, Patience?”

Her ribs hurt, she couldn't catch a deep breath. In another minute she would be swooning in his arms. Even a stubborn O'Hara knew when she'd lost. Patience shrugged and agreed. “You have my word.”

Once again the dark eyes searched her face, seeking the lie. “Good,” he said, and released her. “I think you're a woman who keeps her word.”

She stumbled away from him, folding her arms around her ribs as she sucked in hungry breaths. He made a concerned move toward her. When she jerked away he stepped back, murmuring, “I'm sorry I hurt you.”

“Think nothing of it,” she flared. “I knew there were snakes in the desert, until now I didn't realize one was an anaconda.”

He didn't smile. She hadn't meant it as a joke. For a long moment he stared at her, his arms hanging at his sides. A trick of the moon painted his face in sadness. “I won't hurt you again.”

Patience straightened, her breathing an even rhythm. Her head was back, her chin tilted at an angle. “Do you have a name?”

“I am called Indian.”

“What kind of name is that?”

“Mine.”

“Indian and what else?”

“Just Indian, no more.”

It wasn't his real name, she realized, nor his only name. But, perhaps, it was enough. Certainly it was fitting, even too fitting among this cabal who found anonymity in flamboyant and garish aliases. Custer was no soldier, and Snake no reptile that crawled. Blue Doggie was an animal, but not blue until she'd battered his larynx. This man, who walked the desert as if it were his home, looked the part of his name. With silvery black hair clubbed at his nape and his chiseled features, he could have stepped out of the pages of history.

“All right,” she said when her study of him was done. “If that's all there is, it will have to do.” Her eyes narrowed, her gaze locked with his. “Give me your word, Just Indian.”

He smiled then, a smile that did wonderful things to his striking features even in the garish shadows of the moon. Another time, another place, another person, Patience would have been astounded, but not now. Not here. “Give me your word.”

His smile vanished. “I think you will prove a formidable adversary.”

“Count on it.”

“In that case, you have my word.” He offered his hand, when she took it his fingers closed over hers in a strong clasp. A flash of anger crossed his face as he looked down at broken nails and bruises and the drying blood of cuts from splintering glass. But when he spoke again the anger was hidden. “Come, there is more we have to do.”

“What might that be?”

“You'll see.” When she resisted, jerking away from him, in the same quiet voice he'd used to reason with his companions he said, “You have a choice. Indian, or the rest of them, which will it be?”

She hesitated, weighing choices that weren't choices. When she put her battered hand in his again, it was her life, as well.

“No matter what I say, no matter what I do,” he said softly, “remember I will never hurt you.”

He led her then to the center of the road, waiting in silence for the revelers to attend him. Slowly, one by one, they turned, curious looks on their faces. When all was quiet he spoke. “Blue Doggie lies there in the gutter, felled by the woman. She would have escaped, I stopped her. By our law that makes her mine to do with as I wish.”

“Law! What law?” Patience whirled on him, her protest lost in the roar of complaint from the bikers.

Indian ignored them, he ignored her. Keeping her hand firmly in his, he addressed Custer, the leader, with the stilted formality of a declaration. “She is a woman befitting a warrior. From now and for as long as I wish, she will be my woman.”

Patience stared at him, for once she was speechless.

Turning to her, meeting her stunned gaze, into a hostile hush he declared, “Only mine.”

“A
ll right, Just Indian, what the devil was that all about?”

As they moved beyond the hearing of capering, beer-guzzling revelers, Patience ripped away from the grasp that guided her over a nearly hidden stretch of rough terrain that separated his bike from the others. A grasp, if she could believe her own muddled perceptions and trust this man called Indian, that was solicitous rather than restraining.

But she didn't trust him. She wouldn't trust anyone until she walked out of the desert, free and unharmed.

Spinning around in front of his bike she faced him, bootheels digging into crumbling soil, fisted hands at her hips. “What was that gibberish about laws?”

“Sticks in your craw, doesn't it? Being called my woman,” he asked quietly. Before she could lash out again, he added just as quietly, “It isn't gibberish.”

“It isn't gibberish when a pack of lawless morons prattle about laws?” The moon was fully risen. A perfect leviathan ball hanging in the sky, half as bright as the sun, painting the desert in sharp silvered edges and inky pools. In an eerie moonscape he loomed over her, as somber as the land in the night shade of a saguaro. More than half a foot taller and an easy sixty pounds heavier, he was an intimidating figure, but she was too indignant to be intimidated. “Law,” she snarled. “From creatures who give themselves animal names and play at being human?”

His hands shot out of shadow, catching her shoulders in a firm hold. “I brought you out here to talk to you, not quarrel, you hotheaded little fool. So shut up and listen before you make matters worse than they are already.”

“Worse!” Patience flung back her head, her eyes blazing. “What could be worse? Stranded in the desert. Harassed, attacked. Pawed and fondled. Fought over by mad dogs. Parceled off like a...” She cast about her mind, searching for the ultimate insult.

“Like a squaw?” Indian supplied.

“Exactly.” Patience's breath hissed through clenched teeth. “Why don't you explain what could possibly be worse than being your squaw.”

“Hush! Now!” He shook her, just once, but it was enough to signal how near he'd come to the end of his tolerance. “Put a check on your Irish temper and shut that pretty little mouth or I'll...”

“You'll what? Hit me? Ravish me? Or do you plan to threaten me to death?” Her chin lifted a notch, her voice was laced with contempt. “So much for Indian's word.”

“Damn you!” His fingers bit into her shoulders, driving closely trimmed nails into her flesh as he moved closer and into the light. His chest heaved in controlled anger, his body was as unrelenting as stone. “I'm not going to hit you, or ravish you. And anything I say will be fact or promise, never threat. Yes, I gave you my word on it before. I've kept my part of the bargain.”

“And I didn't?”

“You promised you wouldn't fight me.”

“I'm not Cochise.” She pulled away from him then and was surprised that he let her go. Crossing her arms at her breasts in a belligerent attitude she glared up at him. “I didn't promise I would fight no more forever.”

His look moved over her in grudging admiration for her defiance, her courage against impossible odds. “No, you didn't, did you?” Something akin to a smile ghosted over his lips and vanished. “It was Chief Joseph.”

“So?” Patience shrugged her indifference, neither understanding nor caring to understand the cryptic remark.

“You were quoting Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce. The correct phrase is ‘From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.'”

“That's just lovely.” Her drawl was saccharine. “I doubt there were six bikers and one Indian threatening him with every conceivable indignity.”

“No,” Indian answered thoughtfully, “there were no bikers.”

“Lucky man.”

“An intelligent man, who knew when to fight and when to stop.”

Her head moved abruptly side to side, rejecting the subtle overture. “I'll stop fighting when one of us stops breathing.”

He sighed heavily, threads of frustrated tension frayed as he struggled against the urge to break his word and throttle her. If there was ever even a ghost of a smile it was forgotten and buried. His face was somber, a startlingly tantalizing mask of stark lines and planes. “The only good Indian is a dead Indian? Is that it?”

Patience should have heeded the savage undertone in his words, but she was too lost in her own hostility to hear. “Considering that you're the only Indian I know, yes, that's precisely it.”

He moved, then, like a striking snake. Quicker than the eye could focus, or the mind comprehend, he swept her into his arms. One hand locked around her waist, the other cradled her head in uncompromising control. Her head was yanked back, her face lifted to his. If the moon had been a strobe, the disgust he felt couldn't have been clearer. “Considering your reckless mouth and your ungoverned temper, I'm surprised you survived this life long enough to lose yourself in the desert. Since you have, and since it's my misfortune to be stuck with you, we have to do what we must and make the best we can of a bad situation.”

“Your misfortune?” She struggled against his embrace, but he was far too strong for her. “Yours!”

“Yes, mine. There are things you don't understand. Things you can never know.” The words rumbled deep in his throat, a whispered growl rather than spoken. His hand tensed in her hair as she fought to turn away from a quiet anger more frightening than savage rage.

Suddenly he was silent, as motionless as the saguaro. As inscrutable. His posture did not change, nor his manner, his relentless black gaze never strayed from her face. Yet he seemed to be waiting. Waiting and wary, listening to sounds only he could hear. He held her, his body coiled and ready, yet his thoughts seemed drawn to some distant place.

His head lifted, barely a fraction. So little even Patience couldn't have seen it if she hadn't been staring at him from less than a foot away. Slowly, as if the smallest shifting of an eye could be detected by some secret cabal, he lifted his covert gaze to the terrain at her back. For a second that could have been forever, he studied the desert grasses, the mesquite, the creosote, the paloverde, and no one but she would have witnessed.

A strange word, harsh and nearly silent, tore from his lips. A word she didn't understand, in a language she'd never heard. Yet she recognized regret in it, and anger unlike before.

“Indian?” She was bewildered and confused, and the unbearable fear that never truly left her for all her bravado, added another weight. “What is it?”

“Be quiet, woman.” His voice was unnaturally harsh and loud, unlike the low melodious tone he'd spoken in before, even in anger. “I tire of your prattle.”

He bent nearer, so near she couldn't see him clearly, yet his breathy undertone meant for her ears alone barely reached her. “I won't ask your forgiveness for stooping to clichés, but it isn't just your cookie that crumbled tonight, and not just you who wishes you were anywhere but here. Believe me when I say I'm not going to like this any better than you will.”

She realized too late what he intended. Too late to do more than cry out. “No-oo!”

He ignored her protest, silencing it with his kiss. His mouth closed over hers, quickly, expertly, catching her lips parted in a startled gasp. He held her closer, clasping her body forcefully to his. In startling contrast his lips moved softly over hers, seducing her into stunned submission. As he swept her with him to a dark place of utter helplessness, her muted cries died in her throat. Her wounded hands ceased their fruitless resistance to lie woodenly against his chest, as wooden as she, as she steeled herself to endure his intimate conquest.

She was dangerously lifeless in his arms, a mannequin without a spark of resistance or even outrage. Indian pulled away. Only a hairbreadth separated their lips, and only his cool stare filled her vision. “What's the matter? Are you all talk? Is that it, you only talk a good fight? Where is that Irish temper now?” He smiled crookedly down at her, a triumphant look in his eyes, yet edged by something she didn't understand. “Could it be you wanted my kiss after all?”

“You're mad!” Patience stared up at him. “Stark, raving mad.”

“Am I?” He pushed her hair aside to brush his lips down the curve of her throat. “I don't think so.”

“Indian, don't do this.” She strained away from him, trying to evade him, trying to reason with him. “Please.”

“Please?” He laughed, a low sound that would have seemed oddly forced if she'd been conscious of anything beyond her struggle. “I like that.” He moved his hand from her hair to stroke her cheek. “You know you want me. Admit it, admit that you want me.”

“Want!” In abject fury, Patience came alive. Tearing one arm free from the iron circle of his embrace she delivered a vicious, openhanded slap to his temple. Burrowing her hand in his hair, her fingers closed over the beaded leather thong that held it back, with all her strength she pulled, wishing she could scalp him. Instead the tie broke free and she clutched it in her fist as she pummeled him wherever she could. “Damn you.” She panted in her struggle against his hold. “I'll show you what I want.”

He dodged a blow that would have blacked an eye or chipped a tooth and he laughed the same strained laugh once more. “That's it. Fight,” he muttered. “For your sake and mine, fight every step of the way.”

Reining in the little freedom he'd deliberately allowed her, he took her mouth then. His kiss was deep and hard, expertly thorough, and completely without passion.

Her mind was reeling. Her hands hurt and her head. His long, lean frame thrust against her, his hands were in her hair, on her body. The taste of him was on her lips, the scent of him in her lungs. He was everywhere. He was everything.

Danger.

Survival.

Life.

There was no escaping him.

In bitter denial of the truth she opened her mouth, clamped her teeth on his lip and bit him, wreaking what havoc she could, drawing blood at last. His smothered grunt of pain was a symphony to her ears, the taste of his blood was one small victory. Then, incredibly, he laughed as he pulled away.

“Fight, wildcat. Fight as hard and as well as you can.” Bending, he kissed the side of her neck, leaving a trail of blood on the collar of her shirt. “The harder you resist, the more pleasure for both of us when I tame you.”

“Never,” Patience declared, thrashing and straining, trying to distance herself from him. She was so intent on pushing him away she almost fell when he released her. Only his hand at her elbow kept her from falling in the dust.

“Easy,” he muttered as he helped her keep her footing. “The ground is unstable here.”

Patience whirled on him, peeling his hand from her arm as if it were scabrous. “Let me go. Don't touch me.”

Because they were alone again he let her go. As he watched her walk away a little distance into the desert, he listened to a stealthy retreat. Snake's step was familiar, and Custer's slight limp unmistakable.

Taking little pride in his performance, he waited until the sounds faded completely before he went to her. “O'Hara.” He stood at her back, waiting for some sign, some reaction to his brutal burlesque of Jekyll and Hyde. “O'Hara, look at me.”

She didn't turn. Her back seemed straighter, more rigid.

“This wasn't what you think.” Indian touched her shoulder, meaning to turn her into his arms to justify, to comfort. “Let me explain.”

She shrugged him off, swayed with the effort, then straightened again, assuming the ramrod posture. Drawing a shuddering breath, with the back of a shaking hand she wiped her mouth viciously. Her hand dropped stiffly to her side as an unnatural stillness enveloped her.

Indian knew she was in pain, the silent, gut-wrenching, tearless pain of humiliating helplessness. Pain he caused her.

Cursing himself and the world, he turned her into his arms. When she fought him, he let her, stoically suffering the claw of broken and unbroken nails, the pummel of poor, sore hands. He knew it wouldn't be for long. She'd fought him hard and well, as he'd wanted, but she was near the end of her strength. He waited for this last spurt of rebellion to end, speaking softly to her in a nearly wordless murmur as he waited.

When the inertia of mind-destroying fatigue overwhelmed her, when she was still again and quiet, he gathered her nearer. That there was not even token resistance proved how close she'd come to total collapse, how complete the despair that sapped the last of her vitality. Repulsed by circumstances that brought her to this, and for his necessary role in it, Indian tucked her head into his shoulder, stroking her hair, offering what respite he could.

He suspected this was a rare occurrence in any circumstance. An uncommon moment when this spirited woman faltered, in need of restoring peace to her ravaged mind and body.

She'd weathered more than he'd thought possible. When he'd caught his first glimpse of her pinioned in the glare of unmerciful headlights, she was small and fragile, her delicate heart-shaped face almost overwhelmed by a lioness's mane of hair like flame. He wouldn't have given a penny for her chances of outlasting the savagery he knew was coming. Yet he couldn't intervene, not then. The odds in her favor escalated when she'd proven immune to the head games his fellow riders were so adept at playing.

The derringer was a surprise. He didn't expect it, but from the moment she'd palmed it like a pro, he knew this woman was a breed apart.

The pièce de résistance was Blue Doggie. No one in his right mind would have believed that before Indian could reach her, this scrap of a woman, brutalized physically and mentally, could fell a man more than twice her size in one two-fisted uppercut.

She'd endured beyond human endurance and hadn't broken, until Indian took it upon himself to see to her welfare. Until Indian, in his own inimitable style, brought her to the brink. To this silent suffering.