The Savage

“How do you know about what happened to my livery?” Lance asked, his tone grim.

Prewitt smirked. “Everybody heard about that. Could be you blame me.”

“You’re clutching at straws,” Reed insisted.

“I sure as hell don’t think so. It’s a fact Comanches’d rather steal horses than steers. I didn’t hear tell of any of your stock goin’ missin’. Why would they bypass your place lessen he was in on it?”

“You’ll have to have more proof than that, Prewitt.”

“I’ll get you your proof. And then he’s gonna pay.” He looked directly at Lance. “Around these parts a man gets strung up for stealing beeves. I don’t give a shit what your Yank traitor and your purty squaw say to protect you—”

Lance struck faster than a rattler. Ducking through the rails of the corral, he had Prewitt by the shirt collar and was dragging him from the saddle before any of his henchmen could even think of reacting. His fist made a sickening thwick as it contacted with Prewitt’s jaw and sent the man sprawling face-first in the dirt.

Flexing his knuckles, Lance stood over him threateningly. “You can say what you like about me, but you talk filthy about my wife and you’ll find your face rearranged.”

Working his jaw gingerly, Prewitt turned his head and spit out blood, although still keeping a cautious eye on the dangerous man above him. “Who the hell are you to threaten me?”

Lance’s mouth twisted in a not-very-nice smile. “Not a threat, Prewitt. A fact. You’re so big on facts. Keep it in mind—and get the hell off our land.”

Prewitt, finding no one among the men he’d brought willing to push the issue, picked himself up off the ground and climbed back into his saddle. With a malevolent look at Lance, he jerked the reins and turned his horse. “You ain’t heard the last of this,” he called over his shoulder before he galloped off, his men following.

The silence they left behind seemed hollow and ominous.

“I wouldn’t let Prewitt get to you, Lance,” Reed said finally.

“It’s not me I’m worried about.” He was looking at Summer.

Reed nodded grimly. Considerately then, he backed the sorrel away to resume his training, giving them some privacy.

“I’m sorry about what he called you,” Lance said in a low voice.

Summer, finding her knees strangely weak, put a hand out to hold on to the corral fence. “It’s all right.”

“No, dammit, it’s not all right.” He took a step closer, but stopped, as if afraid to touch her.

Summer closed her eyes, feeling somehow violated by Prewitt’s ugliness. She had known the attitudes of some of her neighbors would be poisoned against her because of her marriage to Lance, but she had thought she would be safe at Sky Valley. “Sometimes I wish…”

“What?” Lance demanded quietly when she faltered.

“I just wish the world would go away and leave us in

peace.”

He closed the distance between them then, his arms a protective weight as they slid about her waist. Blindly she turned and melted into the shelter of his embrace.

He held her like that for a while, his throat closing on old and familiar emotions…sick helplessness and impotent rage. Squaw was such an ugly word the way whites meant it. An Indian’s whore. He’d learned to despise that word, watching his mother shrink a little more each time some holier-than-thou bastard taunted her with it. But the sensation that gnawed deepest in his gut was fear. Summer was being treated just the way his mother had been—and sooner or later she would come to hate him for it.

“I guess I’ve let you in for a hard time.”

She stiffened in his arms. “It isn’t your fault!”

“I made you marry me,” he said quietly.

“I’ve told you before, I consider my sister’s life a fair exchange—but that is entirely beside the point. Oh, I wish I could have been the one to hit that horrible Will Prewitt!”

It was Lance’s turn to stiffen. “This isn’t your fight, princess.”

“It is now,” Summer vowed grimly. “You took on my battle for my sister, Lance. It’s only right that I take on yours now.”