Authors: Heather Graham
Captive
He moved. Striding toward her, where she lay.
She leaped up at last, standing defensively beside the bed. But it made no difference. He reached out for her, caught her wrist, wrenched her into his arms. His chest was bare and she felt the fevered heat of it burning through the thin white fabric of her nightdress.
“You’ve no right,” she began brokenly. “You can’t come here like this—”
But he had. And he didn’t speak a word, just captured her face between his two palms, found her lips with his own. Forceful, passionate.
Savage …
“You were just in my room,” he told her huskily. “What did you come for?”
“To say good-bye,” she whispered.
“No. The truth.”
“I came …”
“For me. For this…” His mouth covered hers again. Demanding, heated, passionate, undeniable.
Give a gift to yourself or someone you love…
Christmas
Graham
On sale in October in a beautiful Topaz hardcover edition. Be sure to look for it at your favorite store and enjoy an additional special bonus gift of a free paperback of your choice with the purchase of
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Graham
A TOPAZ BOOK
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First published by Topaz, an imprint of Dutton Signet,
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First Printing, August, 1996
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Copyright © Heather Graham Pozzessere, 1996
All rights reserved
EISBN: 9781101576052
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If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
To Kate and Chris Ryan, Linda and Dean Ryan, Sharon Spiak and Carl Litwin, and Kathryn Falk and Kenneth Rubin—thanks for lobster at Chum-ley’s, steak at Le Bar Bar, brown beer at Jekyll & Hyde, coin-op machine parties, and so many other great times. Thanks for making business pleasure, and for giving me one more reason to be so very grateful for what I do for a living.
Table of Content
Prologue
The Hostage
The Florida Territory
Early fall, 1837
S
he was dead. Almost dead. So close to dead that she could nearly taste the metallic silver of the blade that threatened her throat, feel the hot stickiness and choke on the pulsing red spill of her own blood …
But then a harsh, deep cry went out, shattering the air. The warrior about to murder her paused. The blade did not touch her throat. The cry, the shout of command that had broken through the carnage, had been so fierce that it stilled even the jubilant sounds of pillage, murder, and glory from the savages who had so recently won their battle and now set upon their victims, some stealing rings and trinkets, some giving the coup de grace to maimed and anguished men, some seeking murder, some seeking scalps.
The shouted cry stopped them all. It had all been cacophony; the day was suddenly and incredibly still. Teela stared up at the warrior, who seemed to have frozen in motion. A fierce warrior, one with blunt-cut ink black hair, an all but naked bear-greased body, and mahogany eyes that impaled her with hatred One who had wanted her life. She stared back at him, hating him equally.
Enough. She didn’t know quite what was going on—why the sudden ringing command of one warrior should stop this carnage—but she had endured enough. She’d not been part of a U.S. Army war party. She had only been on her way to leave this savage place. So savage,
even in its beauty. Even now, as the sun fell, the sky was streaked with a rainbow of golden colors, yellows, oranges, crimson. The sun would fall soon, and the moon and the stars would rise and cool breezes would blow away the heat.
And she would most probably still die as the darkness blanketed the wild, raw, beautiful land …
Perhaps she was in this wretched danger because most of her escort had been chosen from men who had often served beneath her stepfather—hardened, ruthless soldiers who had prowled these swamps for endless months now, and battled the Seminoles and others on their own wild lands. Not perhaps—most certainly it was so. Few whites were hated by the Indians as much as Michael Warren. That hatred extended to the men who served him.
And, so it seemed, to his daughter.
And perhaps she knew full well in her heart that the soldiers had often been as cruel and rapacious as any “red” man could be. Perhaps she could not even blame the Indians for their hatred of her father and anything and anyone that he had touched.
But she had brought them no harm. And a few of the men on this escort service had been nothing more than green boys, too young, too innocent, to deserve such a death in the wilderness. Dear God, she did not deserve such a death in the wilderness!
“Bastard!” she cried suddenly to the warrior who still held her by the waves of her hair. She kicked into his gut and groin with all of her strength, desperate to be freed from him, even if it would be for nothing more than the last few seconds in which she might draw breath.