The Savage

And as she’d suggested, he could leave Summer with his family. He could trust them to look after her while he was searching for her sister. Summer would probably be shocked to the roots of her gleaming chignon to find herself in the midst of such a brutal society, but it might do her good to see the culture he came from.

Then again, it might give her a disgust of him forever.

Still, he didn’t have many good choices.

“I’ll think about it,” he said gruffly, reluctantly, before urging his horse into a lope, leaving her to follow as best she could.

She kept up with him. With grim determination, Summer spurred her horse after Lance and refused to eat his dust. By the time they reached the stage station at Belknap, she could tell he was wavering. And when Jeb Burkett told them it would be two more days before the stage for Austin came through, Summer glanced at Lance and released a long breath of relief.

She could tell by the grim set of his mouth that, for better or worse, she had won.

Chapter 7

They set out from Belknap that afternoon, heading due north through the Cross Timbers, and rode long past dark by the light of a half-moon. Lance wanted to make as many miles as possible that day so they could reach the trading post on the Red River by the next evening. He intended to buy presents for his family there, and led a packhorse for that purpose—which was all the communication or explanation he offered Summer.

Uncomplaining, she kept up with him, even though she was unaccustomed to riding astride, even though her stiffening muscles protested every grueling mile. She was too grateful for being allowed to accompany him.

They finally made camp in the shelter of a sandstone bluff, near a small spring. Feeling rather useless, Summer watched as Lance unsaddled the horses and fixed a meal of bacon and beans. She was too weary to have much of an appetite, though, and she fell asleep as soon as supper was finished. Lance cleaned up and lay back on his bedroll, cradling his rifle and wondering if he’d made a huge mistake bringing her with him. Wondering if he’d miscalculated the danger.

Not the physical peril. He could handle that, he was pretty sure. Summer was his responsibility now, and he would give his life before letting a single hair on her head come to harm.

But the risk to his own self-preservation was far more lethal. Day after day, having Summer so close by, and yet so far…

Lance squeezed his eyes shut. Dammit to hell, why’d he have to go and let himself get involved with her again? He’d been doing fine until then. Now he hurt, and seemed to be hurting all the time.

That look in her eyes today…like she didn’t know whether to trust him not to murder her own kin.

And even if she did someday realize he’d rather cut out

his own heart than cause her pain, he would never be good enough for her…a scum half-breed with the disposition of a mountain wildcat. No white woman would want to get near him, let alone take him to her breast and cherish him as her husband. Summer would never be able to overcome her instinctive fear of him, her disdain at his background, her revulsion at being forced into marrying a man like him. What a damn fool he’d been to think she could ever come to look at him with desire, with love in her eyes.

He had his emotions fiercely under control by morning—although Summer remained oblivious to the battle. When he woke her at dawn, she groaned and burrowed deeper beneath her blanket. Her body felt like one huge ache. The prospect of facing another day of hard riding made her quail, but when Lance calmly threatened to leave her behind, she forced her sore limbs to move.

By the time she had performed a quick toilet at the spring and pulled on her gloves, Lance had struck camp and was preparing to mount up. She flinched when he tried to help her into the saddle, more in pain than in startlement, but from the way his hard mouth curled, she realized he’d taken it as a rebuff.

He dropped his hands from her waist as if he’d touched hot coals, and said in a drawling voice, “Don’t worry, princess. I told you I’m not gonna rape you.”

“I didn’t think that....”

The apology she’d been about to make died on her lips when he turned on his heel and left her to struggle into the saddle on her own.

They ate breakfast on the move. Summer chewed awkwardly on the dried beef jerky and hardtack, which tasted a lot like sawdust. As the morning wore on, she eyed Lance with growing annoyance. She resented his masculine strength, resented his easy adaptation to such difficult conditions. He sat his roan like he was part horse. But then, that wasn’t much of an exaggeration. Comanches were the greatest horsemen alive, and Lance had obviously inherited the trait.

Irritated, Summer tore her gaze from him and faced forward in the saddle. There’d been a time when she might have tried to impress Lance with her own equestrian skill, or at least have tried to interrupt his brooding silence to make him notice her. But she couldn’t afford to indulge in such nonsense now. All she cared about was finding her sister. Still, she couldn’t help thinking what a spoiled little fool she had once been.

After a few more hours, though, she didn’t even have the energy to waste on unproductive thoughts. It was all she could do to keep her numb body in the saddle. Lance seemed driven, allowing only two brief stops to rest and water the horses.

They reached the Red River at sunset, just as the western sky turned a breathtaking crimson and gold. The shimmering rays glinted off the sinuously winding current, making it look like it stretched forever. A large log building stood by the river ford, fortified with stone walls and blazoned with a cedar sign proclaiming the place to be Deek’s Trading Post.

They were barely in sight, however, when a huge grizzly bear of a man came out to greet them. “Hot damn, if it ain’t Lance Calder!” the bearded giant exclaimed, tossing his rifle aside. “Where you been keeping yerself, boy?”

To Summer’s surprise, Lance’s hard mouth split into a grin of genuine pleasure. He slid down from his horse, straight into the waiting arms of the bear, and suddenly both men were on the ground, rolling over and over each other. Summer watched in alarm as they wrestled in the dirt. They sprang to their feet to warily circle each other…and then suddenly the game ended as abruptly as it had begun. Laughing, the two men embraced and pounded each other on the back, before Lance finally pulled away and slapped at the dust on his denims.

“I went back home and turned respectable,” he said in reply to the earlier question.

“You? Naw, you’re pullin’ my leg.”

“Well, believe it, it’s true. I have my own livery now. And…this is my wife, Summer.”