She gagged, choked, and turned her head away as she stumbled to her feet.
The man who had raped her, who was the father of the child that grew inside her, had killed High Hawk’s father.
Now she and High Hawk both had cause to seek vengeance against Mole!
High Hawk had heard Joylynn gag, had seen her turn her eyes quickly away from him. He was puzzled by her reaction.
He rose and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him. “It seems you know this name. Why did you react as you did when I mentioned the man named Mole?” he asked warily.
She turned her eyes to him again, looked at him through a wash of tears, then reached for one of his hands and placed it on her stomach, where the child lay in the safe cocoon of her womb.
“This . . . the child . . . is why,” she said.
Stunned to know whose child lay within her womb, he glared at Joylynn. “Were . . . you . . . that man’s woman?”
“No, oh, Lord, no,” she gasped out, her heart going cold at the thought. “That man was nothing to me. I hate him. He changed my life forever.”
“How?” High Hawk asked, searching her eyes.
“He . . . ambushed me on
e day and . . . heartlessly raped me and . . . left me for dead,” she said, tears spilling from her eyes as she spoke the horrible words aloud.
It had been enough to see the rape over and over again in her dreams. But to speak of it was like living it all over again.
“Raped?” High Hawk gasped.
He reached out and brushed tears from her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, then took her hands and urged her to sit beside the fire again with him.
He sat there and listened to the story of how she had been a Pony Express rider, and then how Mole had stopped her one day during her ride, and raped her.
A bitter rage toward Mole filled High Hawk anew when he imagined such a thing happening to his woman.
Yes!
His woman!
He loved Joylynn with all his heart. He was actually relieved to finally know exactly how she had come to be pregnant. And he felt deeply the pain that madman had caused her.
“Yes, raped,” Joylynn said softly, lowering her eyes.
She rose to her feet and turned her back to High Hawk. “Afterward, he choked me. He thought I was dead when he rode off. But I wasn’t. I had enough breath left in my lungs to survive the terrible rape.”
Suddenly she felt strong arms around her.
She melted into High Hawk’s embrace as he turned her toward him.
While she sobbed and cried, he held her ever so lovingly.
When he placed a finger beneath her chin and gazed down into her eyes, she saw cold determination. “The man will die for sinning against you and my people,” he said angrily. “He does not have much longer on this earth.”
“He cannot die soon enough,” Joylynn said, sighing when High Hawk held her close, proving that she had nothing to fear from him any longer.
She could feel his love for her in the tender way he held her and talked to her.
“Although I am now chief, and I have the last word in everything at my village, I will not promise anything except this. Mole will die a horrible death when he is found,” High Hawk said thickly.
For now, that was enough for Joylynn.