Native Wolf (23 page)

But what about Chase? As wickedly seductive as his actions seemed, it was impossible to envision him as a villain.

She gazed down at the dark arm wrapped around her. With his coal-black hair and eyes and his bronzed skin, Chase certainly
looked
like the dangerous Red-skins in her stories. But he was nothing like the savages of Beadle’s books. His tongue was soft as it tangled with hers. His kiss was delectable ambrosia. And the way he caressed her...

Her heart fluttered. He'd touched her in ways no man had—not just physically, but in her heart and in her spirit. He'd swept into her life when she'd needed him most, just as Yoema had foretold, to heal the past.

It was meant to be.

They
were meant to be.

She knew it. And she knew that while he might not have the polite and genteel qualities of a dime novel hero, Chase Wolf was definitely the hero of
her
story.

Chase held Claire until she fell asleep. Then he carefully lowered her down to the pine bough bed.

She looked so peaceful, so satiated, so content.

He sighed. At least
one
of them was happy.

He rolled onto his back on the hard ground beside her and focused on the stars above. The lust distorting his trousers showed no signs of subsiding, even though his eyes were trained away from the woman who was to blame for it.

He tried to think of something else. Anything else.

His family. He wondered what his sister Rose was doing back at Hupa. Probably snuggling up to that husband of hers, all warm and safe and content, trying to make their first baby.

What about his brother, Drew Hawk? Drew was likely sitting in a saloon, one hand wrapped around a trio of Aces and the other around some supple-hipped saloon girl in lace petticoats.

He grimaced.

How long had it been since Chase had shared his bed with a woman? A long while, apparently, by the direction of his thoughts and the lingering heat of his blood.

He supposed there were too many other things filling his time at the village. He was the only blacksmith in Hupa. His work kept him busy from dawn to dusk, and most nights he was too tired to do more than shovel spoonfuls of salmon stew and peach pie into his mouth before he collapsed into bed.

How long had it been? The last moon? Longer? It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to slake his thirst with the beautiful woman sleeping beside him tonight, and the sooner he realized it, the better.

Unfortunately, he couldn't stop thinking about what it would be like to not only make love to Claire right now, but to make love to her over and over, to have a lifetime of lovemaking ahead of them.

What if the notion that had sprung into his mind was true? What if
vengeance was not the way to give his grandmother's spirit peace? What if repairing the past meant
loving
his enemy instead, as his mother's Bible preached? Was it possible that a bond between the two of them would complete the circle?

Tempting images of marriage to the beautiful Claire Parker whirled through his mind, settling into an uncomfortable truth.

He didn't want to leave her.

And it wasn't only lust making him feel that way.

It wasn't even that sense of destiny that had come over him.

The truth was he was in love with her.

It was crazy. He'd only known her for a few days. How could he be so certain? And even if he did love her, why did he think there was even a remote possibility of a relationship between them?

They were from completely different worlds. And while that had worked for his parents, Claire was nothing like his mother. His mother had come to the west without a husband, without a penny to her name. She’d been grateful to be welcomed into his father's tribe. But Claire Parker was a privileged young lady with a gentleman she intended to marry and a lavish home she stood to inherit. It was unthinkable that she might willingly throw away the comforts of her white world and go with him to live in his backward native village.

Still, he had to admit it was tempting to think about going ahead with his original plan to kidnap her. Hell, stealing wives from other tribes had been part of his people's tradition for generations.

Of course, he realized, it was also barbaric.

He picked up the dime novel left on the ground beside him, looking at the cover. This wasn't one of Claire's books. No Red-Skin in her stories ran away with a white woman and lived happily ever after.

He put the book back down and frowned up at the stars. Then he closed his eyes to dream of things that would never be.

“Well, sir, with all due respect," Frank announced rather smugly, "it looks like you were wrong." He lifted his oil lamp to illuminate the set of tracks that continued up into the mountains. "He isn't headed back to Paradise after all. I'd say he's on his way to Magalia."

Samuel frowned. It always grated on his ears to hear Dogtown called Magalia. It had been Dogtown for as long as he could recall, until someone had decided that was too unflattering a name and changed it. It had been Dogtown when his wife Margaret was alive, and, damn it, that’s how Samuel wanted to remember it.

Frank was muttering to himself again. “Slimy son of a bitch. Just where does he think he’s going?”

After three days of tracking, young Frank's veneer of patience was wearing thin, revealing a nasty nature that Samuel didn’t much like. All Samuel cared about was finding his little girl. Hotheaded cursing wasn’t going to help them.

He stroked his mustache and tried to think. Where could Claire’s kidnapper be headed?

"My guess?" Frank said, interrupting his thoughts. "It's one of those infernal Chinamen. Probably got a hideaway in Magalia where he keeps white women." He spat and sneered, "I hear they ship girls back to China. A pretty young white woman like Claire would bring a damn good price."

Samuel clamped his teeth against a retort. Frank was not only insensitive. He was full of shit. The Chinese people in the area were enterprising laborers who worked mostly at growing crops, laundering clothing, and building rail. Most of them had spent a fortune to get to California, with little hope of ever returning.

"I say we cut him off," Frank continued, "head straight for town at dawn and root out his hidey-hole before he can—"

“First thing in the morning, boys," Samuel announced, tired of Frank's pushiness, "you'll take the horses back to the ranch. They won't be any good where we're headed. Frank and I will track the kidnapper on foot from here."

Frank rubbed his chin, trying to decide if he agreed with that tactic. "Are you sure, sir?"

"He's only one man, Frank." Samuel was sure of that. "I think we can handle him."

Frank straightened with pride. "Well, of course, but...leave us your guns, boys. You can never have too many—"

"We don't need more guns, Frank."

Frank looked disappointed, but he nodded. Samuel figured the young man had an extra Deringer in his boot and probably another up his sleeve anyway. And now that Samuel knew their quarry was pretty well cornered against the ridge of Dogtown, he hoped bullets would be necessary only as a last resort.

It was not quite dawn when Chase abruptly opened his eyes. He'd been dreaming of his grandmother. She’d looked exactly like his mother’s sketches, and she’d smiled at him and spoken two words in her native tongue—
momi lalami.

Still shaken by the vivid vision, unsure of the meaning of her words, it took him a moment to realize he'd been awakened, not by the dream, but by an intruder.

The scent alerted him before he heard the scuffling in the brush. He didn't need to see the black-and-white fur to know what it was—
xoljeh,
a
skunk.

He raised up on one elbow and scanned the shadowy camp. There it was.

Curse his carelessness, he'd left the half-eaten trout beside the fire. He was damned lucky that nothing more dangerous than a skunk had come for it. There were plenty of wildcats and bears that could have been drawn by the prospect of an easy dinner. Still, a skunk was not to be taken lightly.

And this skunk was edging perilously close to Claire. He watched it as it waddled backward with the trout in its mouth, dragging the fish by the tail.

Chase wasn't about to fight for it. It was his fault it had been left out all night. By rights, it belonged to the skunk now.

But it was scooting back, closer and closer to Claire's head. If it didn't change direction, it was going to run right into her. He had to divert it somehow without waking Claire.

He hissed at it.

It ignored him.

He hissed again, this time waving a threatening arm toward the little beast.

It ignored him.

He picked up a pine cone and lobbed it at the ground in front of the skunk, hoping to scare it away.

It paused for a moment, then continued backing.

The skunk was less than an arm's length from Claire now, and the sound of the pine cone had roused her. She rolled over onto her side and flailed out her arm, missing the animal by inches.

Chase's eyes widened. "No," he whispered.

She made a soft, sleepy sound as the skunk backed into her outstretched hand.

"Claire," he hissed urgently.

To his horror, Claire, still half asleep, ran her fingers over the skunk's fur as if it were a tame cat.

This clearly upset the skunk. It dropped the trout and hopped halfway around to face this new threat.

Quickly deciding it might be best if Claire didn't wake up after all, Chase found a long stick and waved it at the beast, which was now preparing to defend its meal.

Sure enough, it started hissing.

Claire stirred at the sound and lifted her head.

Chase poked the skunk lightly with the stick, hoping to annoy it enough to get it to leave.

It growled and started stamping its feet.

Claire mumbled something incoherent and pushed up on her arms.

"No, Claire!" he warned.

"What?" she asked sleepily.

"Hold still."

Of course, with a snarling, stomping skunk inches from her head, the last thing Claire was likely to do was to hold still. She rose up with a gasp.

He poked the beast again.
"Tingyahwh!
Go away!
Tingyahwh, xoljeh!"
Chase hopped up on his haunches and poked once more, prepared to move closer if necessary to keep the skunk from attacking Claire.

The skunk turned its back.

"Chase!" Claire exclaimed. "Look out! Don't!"

The skunk's tail quivered.

Chase yelled, "Move away, Claire!" as he tried to push the animal aside with the stick. If it was going to spray, at least he could direct the spray away from Claire, who was now on her hands and knees. "Look out!"

It worked. The skunk, thoroughly annoyed, angled its rear end back around toward Chase and lifted its tail high.

Claire couldn't imagine why Chase was aggravating a skunk. Were there no skunks where he lived? Didn't he realize they were best left alone? Didn't he know what that upraised tail meant?

Now it was probably too late to avoid a spray.

The skunk gave one last warning shiver of its tail.

"No!" Claire shouted. She had to protect Chase. Without considering the consequences of her actions, she squeezed her eyes shut and dove in front of him, right in the line of fire.

She was instantly sorry. The spray hit her squarely in the midsection, and the all-too-familiar stench was horrid at close range. She didn't dare open her eyes. She only hoped the animal was scuttling away after what it considered a successful strike.

"Claire! Are you all right?"

She coughed. "Is it leaving?"

"Yes." She heard him drop the stick. "It's gone. But why did you…?" He came up to crouch behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. "Are you all right?" he asked, choking on the fumes. "Are you hurt?"

She tried to avoid breathing through her nose. "I'm fine. I'm just—"

"Gah!" he exclaimed as the scent hit him full-force.

"Haven't you ever seen a skunk before?" she asked.