Kitabı oku: «Oklahoma Bride», sayfa 4

“Tell Doc Winston I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Rafe took Karissa’s arm and steered her back to officers’ quarters. “I’m sorry to cut your walk short,” he said very formally.

“Just as well. I have a stack of mending to tend. But thank you for the grand tour.”

She didn’t protest when he practically shoveled her into the room then secured the door for the night. Rafe leaned against the wall and inhaled a steadying breath. Willfully he forced all thoughts of Karissa from his mind. It wasn’t easy, but he was the commandant of this post and his duties always came first.

He wondered why he’d had so much trouble remembering that the past two days.

Chapter Four

R afe spent the following day doing exactly the same thing he had done the day before—and the day before that. Tracking down illegal squatters. He and his patrol had been led on a hair-raising chase over hill and dale before capturing four men who resisted arrest and had to be forcefully subdued.

Tired, irritable and hungry, Rafe rode into the fort. The place looked normal, with off-duty soldiers strolling about. But something didn’t feel quite right. Rafe glanced suspiciously toward the officers’ quarters. Karissa damn well better be where she was supposed to be.

He suspected that she had used their tour the previous night to case the area, looking for a niche in the shadows to hide out before making her getaway.

He had anticipated that she would wait until she thought she’d lulled him into a false sense of control and had him thinking she had accepted captivity before she made her escape. But knowing Karissa, his attempt to second-guess her strategy would work against him, not for him. Much as he hated to admit it, she was a mental step ahead of him.

The woman was too smart by half.

Rafe shifted uneasily in the saddle as he passed by the officers’ quarters. The sixth sense that he’d learned to rely on warned him that something was wrong. It left him with an uneasy tension that prompted him to make fast work of tending his horse. In record time he shut Sergeant in his stall and headed straight for his quarters. He needed to see for himself that Karissa was still in custody.

A growl exploded from his lips when he opened the door to find his room in shambles. The sheets and blankets were in a tangled heap. The table had been up-ended; the bookshelf had toppled over, leaving his military manuals strewn about like casualties of war. The glass globe of the lantern lay in shattered pieces on the floor and oil stained the floorboards.

“Damn her!” Rafe said furiously as he stormed outside.

“She’s gone?” Micah hooted. “I presumed—”

Rafe wheeled on his longtime friend. “You never presume when it comes to that woman!” he fumed. “The moment I think we have reached a workable truce she rips my quarters to shreds and escapes.” He swung his arms in agitated gestures. “This is the thanks I get for guarding the land she wants to claim and keeping it free of other squatters.”

“I’ll go after her,” Micah volunteered hurriedly. “I don’t think you’re in the right frame of mind to track her down.”

“Oh, no, you won’t,” Rafe countered as he stalked off. “She is my responsibility and this is another act of rebellion against my position of authority.”

Rafe didn’t add that, although Micah was probably better suited for pursuing Karissa, he was suffering from an absurd feeling of possessiveness and protectiveness. He wanted to be the one to track her down. He wanted to be the one to discover she hadn’t put herself in harm’s way. He wanted to be the one to rake her over live coals for destroying his quarters and thumbing her nose at his orders. And, by damned, he was going to drag her back to the post to serve her time for breaking the laws governing the upcoming Land Run.

“Um…Rafe?” Micah murmured as he followed his friend.

“What?” he growled as he headed back to the stables.

“I know you’re furious,” Micah called after him, “but outright murder doesn’t become you. You are first and always an officer and a gentleman.”

“Maybe so, but right now I would gladly resign my command for five minutes of justified fury! When I get that woman back in custody she is not going to see the light of day for a week!” He broke into a run and sprinted into the stables. “Assume command of this post while I’m gone, Micah!”

Karissa brushed her fingertips over the bruise on her cheek that still throbbed hours after her harrowing encounter with Harlan Billings. He had tried to force himself on her after he had escorted her back to Rafe’s quarters for the evening. Karissa shook off the repulsive thought of how close she had come to being violated. She had made the mistake of dismissively turning her back on Harlan—a mistake she would never make with any man again.

Considering the fact that she had left Rafe’s room in shambles—as a show of defiance that first night—she really didn’t expect him to believe that lecherous toad had assaulted her. She, after all, was an escaped prisoner and Harlan was a soldier under Rafe’s command.

She clutched the torn neckline of her borrowed dress and waited until the wagon in which she’d hidden had reached a thicket of trees. The driver, who was oblivious to the fact that a stowaway was tucked beneath the tarp in the wagon bed, went merrily on his way. Karissa wormed from concealment and hopped off the wagon. Casting a quick glance to make sure the driver hadn’t noticed her, she dashed into the underbrush.

She knew she didn’t have much time before Rafe discovered she was missing. She had heard the driver of the supply wagon call out a greeting when he encountered the returning army patrol. By now, Rafe would have seen the destruction in his room and assumed she had spitefully laid the place to ruin and made her escape.

Karissa predicted that Rafe would tear off to the site where he had originally apprehended her. Therefore, she would be asking for more trouble than she had already encountered if she made a beeline for her property.

“Well, what have we here?” came a voice from the shadows of the trees.

Karissa refused to let herself freeze up in fear. She had endured one near brush with disaster today and that was more than enough. She had to lose herself in the underbrush and wait until she could use the gathering darkness to her advantage. She didn’t have time to retrieve the bag of men’s clothing and supplies she had buried on her claim site. But she felt exposed and vulnerable while wearing a dress, and whoever had sneaked up on her had realized she was a woman.

When she heard two more male voices behind her, panicked desperation spurted through her veins. Karissa grabbed the front of her skirt to keep from tripping and dashed southeast, veering away from the cover of the trees toward more familiar territory. She knew the property she wanted to claim like the back of her hand. If she could elude the men until darkness became her protector she was sure she could find a place to hide for the night.

Terror and outrage threatened to overwhelm her when she heard one of the men breathing down her neck. She let out a bloodcurdling shriek when he clamped hold of her shoulder and jerked her backward. As she stumbled off balance she raised an elbow to bash in her attacker’s nose. He yelped in pain and covered his face, giving Karissa time to wrest free. Unfortunately, the other two men overtook her and she found herself shoved facedown in the grass.

She screeched, she kicked and she clawed, but three to one odds overpowered her. Karissa screamed bloody murder when two of the men rolled her onto her back and pinned her shoulders to the ground.

A bearded face loomed above her. “You nearly broke my nose, bitch,” the man growled as he yanked up her skirts. “And now you’re going to pay for it, thrice over.”

When the man dropped to his knees, Karissa thrust out her leg and caught him squarely in the groin. He howled like a coyote then lambasted her with curses. But Karissa kept kicking at him and straining against the two men who held her shoulders to the ground. She felt her strength waning and knew it was only a matter of time before these lusty scoundrels did their worst. But Karissa refused to surrender, refused to make it easy on her assailants. She had fought her way through life and it was second nature to battle even the most difficult odds.

“Let her go!” Rafe’s booming voice rumbled in the distance and Karissa slumped in relief.

The men sprang away from her and wheeled toward the mounted soldier, who loomed in the twilight like an avenging angel. When one of the men made a grab for his pistol Rafe’s rifle barked viciously. Karissa glanced sideways to see one of her assailants wilt to the ground, clutching his arm.

“I said back off!” Rafe thundered as he took the second man’s measure on the sight of his rifle.

While dismounting, Rafe kept his weapon trained on the two men left standing. He had ridden hell-for-leather, itching to strangle Karissa for spitefully destroying his quarters and escaping from the fort. But his anger was nothing compared to the outrage that overwhelmed him when he’d heard Karissa’s shriek in the distance and had ridden over the hill to see these three men trying to rape her. He considered himself a fair and just man, but committing cold-blooded murder was starting to appeal to him greatly.

“Sit down in the grass, back to back,” he ordered gruffly. Reaching into his saddlebag, he retrieved three lengths of rope. “Karissa, bind them together.”

She rolled unsteadily to all fours then staggered to her feet. When she swayed slightly, he realized she was suffering from the aftereffects of the attack. Nevertheless, she gathered her composure and tied the two uninjured men together while Rafe inspected the third ruffian’s bullet wound.

When he heard the rending of cloth, he glanced up to see that Karissa had torn the hem off her tattered gown to provide a bandage. “I should let him bleed to death after what he tried to do to me,” she said bitterly, “but I’m not quite as heartless as he is.”

Rafe noticed her hand was still shaking as she offered the improvised bandage. He knew how it felt to ride an adrenaline high, knew she was barely holding herself together. Sooner or later traumatic shock from the unnerving incident was going to catch up with her. Aggravated though he was with her, he was still going to be there to catch her when she fell apart.

“I’m bleeding to death!” the injured man railed as he stared at his bloodstained jacket.

“You’ll live,” Rafe diagnosed as he hurriedly bandaged his captive’s wound. “Considering what you tried to do, you’re lucky I didn’t aim for your heart.”

Swiftly he bound the man’s hands then hoisted him to his feet. With Karissa’s assistance, he marched the men toward the nearest tree and tethered them. “I’ll send a patrol out to retrieve you,” he told the men. “Until then, you can sit here and rot.”

To his surprise, Karissa sidled up beside him, clutched his hand and murmured, “Thank you.”

“This wouldn’t have happened if you had stayed put,” he said, and scowled.

She jerked up her head so quickly that the last of her disheveled coiffure came tumbling down her shoulders, catching in the last rays of sunset like dancing flames. When Rafe noticed the discoloration on her cheek and the gaping neckline of her dress, his fist clenched around his rifle. Vicious fury took a bite out of him as he glared at the three men.

“They didn’t leave the marks,” she told him shakily.

His narrowed gaze swung back to her. “Then who did?”

“You don’t want to know and probably couldn’t care less,” she muttered.

Rafe clutched her arm to shepherd her toward his horse. “When someone assaults a woman who is under my protection, I care,” he assured her gruffly. “Even if said woman probably deserved what she got for her reckless daring.”

To Rafe’s disbelief she didn’t snap back at him. She just sort of crumpled beside him and he reflexively reached out to steady her on her feet. He heard her muffled sob and felt her trembling hands clutch at his arm. In the blink of an eye his frustration evaporated and he gathered her compassionately to him.

“Damn it,” she mumbled against his chest. “The very last thing I meant to do was let you see me cry.”

“It’s all right,” he whispered as he impulsively brushed his lips over her bruised cheek. “You’re going to be fine now. After a warm meal and hot bath you’ll be your sassy self again.”

Well, so much for reading her every paragraph of the riot act—forward and backward, twice. When she broke down and soaked the jacket of his uniform with tears, he couldn’t work up the anger to chastise her.

Yes, she had it coming for putting herself in harm’s way. And yes, he had wanted to be the one to deliver a scathing lecture. But when a woman as strong as Karissa buckled to her emotions Rafe couldn’t bring himself to do anything except offer comfort.

And he was not even going to think about how good she felt in his arms or how much satisfaction he derived from being the one who had rescued her from disaster. As hard as he tried, it was impossible not to become emotionally involved with this woman, even if she was all wrong for him. Even if he was betrothed…

The thought prompted Rafe to release her and step back into his own space. He scooped Karissa off the ground, gently settled her on Sergeant’s back and then swung up behind her.

When he reined toward the fort, she clutched his hand. “I need to fetch my belongings,” she said brokenly. “I buried them near the spring…please?”

Rafe relented and allowed her to take the reins to ride toward her abandoned campsite. He listened to her muffled sobs for as long as he could stand and then said, “I’m truly sorry you met with trouble, Karissa. No woman deserves to be treated so disrespectfully. Rest assured that those three men will be punished severely.”

Ten minutes later Karissa halted beside the rock-covered hillside where a spring trickled into a shimmering pool. Rafe dismounted and then set her to her feet. Swaying slightly, Karissa approached the site of her buried cache and used a nearby rock to unearth her carpetbag. And then to Rafe’s tormented dismay, she burst into tears all over again. He tried to tell himself that it was a manipulative ruse, aimed at drawing his sympathy, but he doubted that even Karissa was that good an actress.

“Can’t you bend your damnable rules and just let me stay here?” she said on a sob and hiccup. “Every soldier at the fort thinks I’m your live-in mistress, even if most of them have been polite and respectful in my presence. I don’t want to go back there. I would rather take my chances out here.” She clung desperately to the carpetbag in her quaking hands. “At least out here I have a disguise for protection. If I had been dressed like a boy, those men wouldn’t have accosted me and your—”

Karissa bit down on her tongue before she blurted out that Harlan Billings had tried to do the very same thing to her. She knew Rafe was loyal to the army and to the men in his command. She had no doubt whatsoever that he would take Harlan’s word over hers.

“My what?” Rafe grilled her as he strode forward to tower over her. “What were you going to say?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s not important. What is important is that I need to stay here so I can claim this property. It’s all I want in life. Is that asking so much?”

Rafe squatted down on his haunches and curled his index finger beneath her quivering chin. Steel-gray eyes bored into her and, even in the darkness, she could feel their intensity on her. “Tell me why it’s so important that you have this property?” he demanded. “Why should I grant you special privileges when this Run for free land is supposed to be a fair race for all other settlers?”

Karissa didn’t know why she wanted to take Rafe into her confidence when she had kept her own counsel for years. She supposed the unnerving experiences of the day had simply broken her spirit and left her with the need to lean on someone until she could gather her composure. She had never begged for anything in her life, but suddenly she found herself blurting out her thoughts like a witless ninny.

“As much as I love this property that calls out to me, I want to claim it for my brother and his new wife,” she gushed as she clutched her dirty carpetbag to her chest. “On the way down from Kansas, Clint was thrown from his horse. He suffered a broken leg and concussion. He barely gets around on the crutch I…found…for him and it will be impossible for him to make the Run. His wife is seven months’ pregnant and she is in no condition to take Clint’s place in the race for land. I’ve looked after my younger brother since we were kids. Now I want him to have a fresh start, the chance to make a new life.”

To her dismay, she realized tears were dribbling down her cheeks. She managed to reroute them, but she couldn’t seem to clamp down on her tongue as she should have. Rafe didn’t care what a difficult life she’d had. She wasn’t his responsibility. He had a blue-blooded fiancée waiting for him back East. He didn’t care that she had somehow gotten attached to him the past few days.

It was ridiculous, but it didn’t stop her from pouring out her heart to him. She felt the insane need to make him understand there was good reason she had turned out the way she had. She didn’t expect him to like her, but she wanted him to understand what motivated her.

“I doubt that you can begin to imagine what it’s like to be uprooted and moved from one lawless cow town to the next while your father drowns his woes in whiskey and gambles away every cent he’s accumulated. I doubt you know what it’s like to be a woman who has to dress as a boy and sweep up in smoke-filled saloons, while calico queens and drunkards paw each other and fling lewd remarks, just so you can acquire enough money to feed yourself and your little brother.”

“Where is your father now?” he asked gently.

“He got caught cheating at poker and the dispute ended badly for him. I couldn’t afford to give him a proper burial.”

“I’m sorry, Rissa.” Rafe tried to pat her consolingly, but she shrugged him off and rambled on before the tears washed away her voice.

“I never had the chance to make friends, only passing acquaintances. Never had a home to call my own or enough money to buy a gown as fine as this one that you borrowed for me. And now look at it!” To her horror, Karissa wailed like an abandoned baby when she realized the gown had suffered irreparable damage. “And how am I going to earn the money to replace this gown? What little money I made from washing, scrubbing and mending will barely cover food and supplies for my brother and his wife!”

Shamelessly Karissa fell into Rafe’s arms, knowing perfectly well she didn’t belong there, that she wasn’t particularly wanted there, but needing to be held and comforted.

Of course, she would never be able to look this man in the eye after she had reduced herself to blubbering tears, but she had to get through the night—somehow—if she was going to marshal her spirits to face another trying day.

“I—I’m s-sorry,” she whimpered, humiliated. “I— I—”

To her further mortification she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him squarely on the mouth. It was a reckless mistake, a complete lapse of good judgment. She had no idea why she thought she needed to kiss Rafe Hunter so desperately. He didn’t belong to her, would never belong to her and she was only reaffirming his belief that she was nothing more than a trollop.

But suddenly Karissa forgot all the reasons she shouldn’t be kissing him, because he was kissing her back and the world tilted on its axis and time ceased to exist.

It didn’t take long to realize that Rafe Hunter kissed as well as he handled a rifle and sat on a horse. He stole the breath right out of her lungs and ignited a fire in her blood that all the water in the creek couldn’t extinguish. Karissa had never felt so wild, reckless and needy, never knew desire could leave a woman’s head spinning so furiously that she couldn’t tell which way was up—and couldn’t care less.

Brawny arms crushed her to him and held her fast. His mouth was like liquid fire on hers and she could feel his heart hammering in frantic rhythm with hers. Every unruly emotion that had hounded her throughout the evening fueled this newly discovered sensation of desire and compelled her to kiss him as if there was no tomorrow.

Karissa lost herself in the unprecedented pleasure, lost herself in this man who stood squarely between her and her dream of a home that could support her family and grant them a new start in life. Yet, at the moment, Rafe Hunter’s incredible kisses seemed to be the only thing she needed to survive from one instant to the next.

While Karissa’s thoughts spun out of control, Rafe kissed Karissa the way he had never kissed a woman—without the slightest restraint. As fragile as her emotions were at the moment he shouldn’t have kissed her at all. But not kissing her was like telling himself not to breathe.

She tasted spicy—so like her temperament. She felt like every man’s forbidden dream in his arms. She held him as tightly to her as he held her to him—like two drowning castaways floundering on a storm-tossed sea. And even knowing he was breaking his impeccable code of honor he still couldn’t stop himself from caressing the shapely curve of her hips and the swell of her breasts.

Rafe had never felt so reckless, and he was a man who prided himself on logic and self-restraint. More than anything he wanted to peel off that tattered dress and press his lips and fingertips to every luscious inch of Karissa’s body. He ached to let this obsessive desire run its fiery course and finally allow him to reclaim his sanity.

Yet, a quiet voice whispered they were alone in the middle of nowhere and no one would know if he took his pleasure in Karissa while she overcame her tormenting experiences by losing herself in his eager arms.

No one would know. But Rafe would know and Karissa would most likely expect him to grant her request to remain on her claim if he took what she had offered to him that first night at the fort.

Just a few more heart-stopping kisses and tantalizing caresses, he bargained with himself. Then he would step back into his role of responsibility and respectability and clear his befuddled head.

“My God,” she wheezed when she came up for a breath of air. “I never knew passion could feel like this.”

Those enormous green eyes, so full of hungry wonder, dropped to his lips, and Rafe realized he hadn’t had enough of her yet. She was the worst kind of temptress a man could encounter. She was complex and complicated. She was spirit, strength, temptation and vulnerability rolled into one enticing package.

There was an innocence about her, even when she’d confided that life had dealt her a difficult hand. But she had defied her fate and fought back with every ounce of energy she could muster, just as she had battled the three men who’d tried to reduce her to an object of sexual gratification.

Rafe knew he’d never held more woman in his arms. That knowledge was an aphrodisiac that left him plundering her mouth and filling his hands with her shapely body. He simply could not get enough of her fast enough to satisfy himself.

He was sorry to say that it wasn’t his own good sense that finally prompted him to remove his wandering hands from her generous curves; it was the sudden hoot of an owl. Guilt and frustration hit him like a fist to the jaw. Damnation, for a man who prided himself on honor, duty and commitment, he was no better than the three men who had pounced on Karissa.

He opened his mouth to apologize, wondering if the astounded look on Karissa’s face mirrored his expression. Probably. It seemed neither of them wanted to acknowledge the powerful attraction that exploded between them like blasting powder.

In the aftermath of their reckless surrender to desire, her gaze dropped like a rock and she clutched her discarded carpetbag to her chest as if it were her only salvation.

“I think you should go now,” she chirped in a voice he could scarcely associate with her. It sounded small, lacking the defiance and confidence he’d come to expect.

Rafe reached over to pull her upright as he surged to his feet. “You’re coming back to the fort with me.” His strangled voice testified to the devastating effect she’d had on him. “I admire your determination to help your brother build a home for his new family, but you are still trespassing and it is still my duty to keep this area free of squatters. Next week you will have the same opportunity as everyone else to claim your land in the Run.”

“On a plodding old horse that already has one foot in the grave, thanks to the accident that left my brother with a broken leg? I sincerely doubt it,” Karissa muttered as she jerked her arm from his grasp and thrust back her shoulders.

She’d spilled her guts to this man, practically threw herself at him to compensate for the churning emotion that was dragging her down after the miserable day she’d had. He’d kissed her, as if the world was coming to an end, touched her in ways she had never allowed another man to touch her. And all he had to say was that she was still his prisoner?

Although she understood that he was a man of honor who took his duty seriously it hurt no less that he couldn’t find it in his rock-solid heart to view her plight as an exception to his confounded rules.

Karissa drew herself up to dignified stature—at least as dignified as she could muster after she’d made a complete fool of herself in Rafe’s arms. “I’m really beginning to hate you, General,” she scowled at him. “I swear, if the day ever comes that you have to break one of your precious, honorable and noble rules it will probably be the death of you.”

She gave an unladylike snort as she pulled herself up into his saddle. For a moment she considered digging her heels into the gelding’s flanks and leaving Rafe afoot. It would take him at least a day to track her down. But he would track her down eventually because he knew exactly where to find her. Furthermore, he would make it his mission and he was relentless when it came to following the rules.

If she pushed him to the limit he would refuse to allow her to make the Run at all. Then her brother wouldn’t have an icicle’s chance in Hades of claiming property for his farm.

There was a hint of a smile in Rafe’s voice when he swung up behind her. “You had your chance to escape and you didn’t take it. Why?”

She wasn’t about to bolster his confidence by admitting that she considered him a force to be reckoned with. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out myself.” She grabbed the reins and headed for the fort. “Maybe it was your irresistible charm that swayed me,” she added sarcastically.

Behind her—too close behind her for her own comfort—she could feel Rafe’s amusement vibrating through every fiber of her body, reminding her of how tightly she had been pressed up against his muscular body moments earlier.

“Compliments from you, Rissa? Now why does that make me suspicious?”

She stiffened her spine to put some distance between them and elevated her chin another notch. “I did not give you permission to use a shortened version of my name, General. It’s Miss Baxter to you. And by the way, Harlan Billings informed me that you have a fiancée. If I hadn’t been so upset earlier I would never have allowed you so close. Despite what you probably think, that incident was not a ploy to maneuver you into letting me stay on my claim. I simply wasn’t myself.”

“And now you are?” he asked.

The hint of amusement in his voice annoyed her. “Yes,” she said with a brisk nod. “Cynical of men for good reason and determined to do whatever necessary to help my brother. What happened between us didn’t really happen. I refuse to allow that moment of insanity to cloud my dealings with you. Now that I’m back on solid mental footing, I can view you for what you are—an aggravating obstacle in my path.”

“I see,” he said. “Then I feel compelled to inform you that if you don’t clean up my quarters, after you maliciously tore it upside down again, that you will be sleeping in the stockade with the other prisoners. I granted you a courtesy and you abused my generosity.”

“I’m not the one who wrecked the place,” she shot back.

“Right,” he scoffed. “As if I wasn’t there that first night when you demolished my room for pure sport.”

Karissa twisted in the saddle to confront him face-to-face. “I was not the one who tore your room apart. Furthermore, I did not self-inflict this bruise on my cheek or damage this borrowed dress. That happened before I left the fort. It was the reason I left the post in the first place. And if you assign the same guard to me tomorrow, I demand a pistol or dagger to protect myself!”

Rafe’s thick brows jackknifed. “Corporal Billings attacked you in my room?” he asked in disbelief.

Karissa swiveled around and stared straight ahead. “Not according to him, I’m sure. No doubt, he will have concocted his own twisted account of the incident. But since you have made it clear repeatedly that you don’t trust me, I don’t expect you to believe me. In fact, you probably don’t believe that I even have a brother with a broken leg and a sister-in-law with child. Why should you? I’m just a nobody from Kansas who has scratched and clawed to accumulate the bare necessities for staying alive.”

Karissa was sincerely grateful when Rafe fell silent and urged his mount into a gallop. She was more than ready to reach the fort and put some distance between them. Having him so close was a tormenting reminder that she had recklessly succumbed to kissing an engaged man who was still more enemy than friend.