Her pulse racing, she then ran her fingers over his fine-boned frame, across his sleek, copper chest, and then along his broad shoulders.
Again she ran her fingers across his cheeks, along features that were sharply chiseled and masculine.
“Oh, how I love you,” she whispered. She leaned over him and gave him a soft kiss on his lips. “How I adore you.”
Realizing that she needed rest now, she sighed languorously. She crawled to the water. Bending low over it she cupped her hands into it and brought the fresh, cold liquid to her mouth and drank it. She smiled over at the horses. They had wandered to the water and were lapping up long drinks.
Her eyes burned with the need of sleep. She crawled back to Dancing Cloud. She gazed down at him again, then turned her eyes to peer into the distance. Slowly she raked the horizon with them, looking for riders. Dare she give in to her need to sleep?
But dare she not? If she did not get adequate rest how could she go on? Her body was not conditioned to such punishments as riding a horse for long hours, or lack of sleep and rest.
And although her stomach growled with her need of food, sleep and rest seemed more important at this moment. When Dancing Cloud awakened they would take time to eat some more of the provisions that she had taken from her aunt’s pantry.
“Now the sheriff can add ‘thief’ to my itinerary while posting wanted posters on me for helping a prisoner escape,” she said.
Too weary to think further on the present mishaps of her life, Lauralee sank to the ground and folded h
erself against Dancing Cloud’s side. She snuggled close, her one arm thrown over his chest. The drifting off to sleep felt so soft and delicious.
* * *
Lauralee and Dancing Cloud awakened with a start at the same moment when the sound of approaching horses drew closer. They had no chance to rise to their feet. Too soon the posse was there, circled around them on three sides.
Feeling trapped and breathless, Lauralee grabbed for Dancing Cloud’s hand. Her eyes locked with her uncle’s as he dismounted his horse. She gulped hard when he came to her and Dancing Cloud and stood over them, his hands on his hips just above his low-slung Colts.
Her gaze then shifted to Sheriff Decker as he slid out of his saddle and came and stood beside Abner. And then to Deputy Dobbs who sauntered to Sheriff Decker’s other side.
Dancing Cloud eyed his rifle. He had been careless to have left it in its gun boot at the side of his horse. But being so tired and sleepy, his logic had not been as sharp as it should have been.
He slipped an arm around Lauralee. Easily and guardedly he eased her up from the ground with him. His gaze searched slowly from man to man as they stood cold-silent and stiff before him and Lauralee.
Then his attention shifted back to Abner Peterson when he took Lauralee’s hand and urged her forward, away from Dancing Cloud. His insides tightened as he waited to see what Peterson’s next moves might be, and what he decided to do about Lauralee. Could he forgive her for having helped Dancing Cloud escape? Or was she a criminal now in the white man’s eyes?
“Uncle Abner, please don’t take us back to Mattoon,” Lauralee pleaded.
“Lauralee, you assisted in an escape,” Abner said. “Don’t you know the extent of that crime? How you might be sentenced to life imprisonment? Or worse yet—to a hanging?”
Lauralee paled. Her throat constricted, making it impossible for her to speak to her uncle. She wanted to scream at her uncle—ask him how he could treat her this way? If her father were alive, he would come and make Abner Peterson pay for what he was doing, not only to his daughter, but to his close, loyal friend.
But she could not find the words. She was filled with an angry despair only known by her one other time in her life—when her mother had been assaulted.
Dancing Cloud stepped up beside Lauralee. “I go willingly back with you to stand trial,” he said, balding his wrists out for handcuffs. “But spare your niece of such humiliation. She does not deserve to be treated as a common criminal. She released an innocent man. She is as innocent, herself.”
Lauralee’s eyes pooled with tears as she looked up at Dancing Cloud. Then she gasped and grew weak in the knees when Paul Brown rode up. He had apparently lagged behind the others. With him, tied by a rope into his reins, was the beautiful, sleek white stallion that was the cause for all of these misunderstandings.
Her thoughts became scrambled.
Where had Paul gotten the horse?
Why had he brought it here?
“Paul, bring the stallion to me,” Abner said, turning to smile at Paul as he dismounted.
Dancing Cloud’s heart raced at the sight of the horse and what it might mean. If they had the stallion, then they surely had the true criminal!
But if so, why had the posse been so hell-bent on trailing him and Lauralee?
They had been unmerciful in their pursuit!