Comanche Heart

  The following afternoon, Amy went by the dry goods store to select some cloth for a dress. After haggling with Mr. Hamstead on the price, she purchased the yardage in a delightfully lightweight blue serge and splurged on a quarter yard of ecru lace to accent the collar, bodice, and cuffs. She had a gorgeous cut-to-size pattern that she had found in Harper’s Bazaar, with a fitted bodice, gently flared skirt, and a three-ruffle pouf in back. While admiring a sewing machine in one of Mr. Hamstead’s catalogs, she gave him a wistful smile.

  “Still saving?” he asked with a chuckle. He bound her packages with twine and gave them a pat. “They get more expensive in every issue, you know.”

  Amy gnawed her lip, tempted to order one straight away. If she did, though, her savings would be sorely depleted, and she felt more secure with some money set aside. “Never fear, I’ll be in to order one soon. Why, if I had a machine, I could have this dress on its way to being finished after a couple of evenings’ work. I could sew for Loretta and Indigo. Make shirts for Hunter and Chase.” She snapped her fingers. “And be done just like that.”

  His blue eyes twinkled. “The wife sure loves hers. And Tess Bronson ordered one last week.”

  “She didn’t!” Amy leaned back over the catalog, filled with yearning. “As hard as she works in the restaurant, she deserves it.”

  “Being a teacher isn’t exactly light duty,” he reminded her.

  “It doesn’t make one wealthy, either,” she came back. “On a single income, I have to watch my pennies.”

  “Make Sam Jones a happy man, and he’ll buy you a sewing machine for every room.”

  “He’s a very nice man, but I’m not in the market for a husband. I’ll just save up, thank you.”

  “Anytime you’re ready to order, I’ll still give you the discount I promised.”

  Amy winked at him. “As if I’d let you worm your way out.”

  Happily contemplating the day when she could place an order for a sewing machine, Amy gathered her packages, bade Mr. Hamstead good-bye, and headed for the door, promising herself that tonight she would stay busy and never spare a thought for Swift Lopez.

  After leaving the shop, she gathered her courage and went to Loretta’s for a visit, as had always been her habit each day after school. As she had hoped, Swift and Hunter hadn’t come home from the mines yet. She nearly grinned with delight. Swift couldn’t very well cloud up and do much raining, at least not for another day. She had shown up. He couldn’t argue with that.

  “Is Swift going to work for Hunter?” Amy asked shortly after her arrival. She dreaded the answer but felt a need to know.

  “I think so,” Loretta replied, stooped low over the oven to check her bread. “Lord knows there’s enough gold in that mountain to share, and Hunter could use a partner to carry part of the load. Who knows, maybe having Swift here will free him up so he can enjoy life a little more. Those other men who work for him can’t wipe their own noses without him telling them how.”

  Amy knew Hunter worked too hard and that she should be pleased there might be an end to that in sight, but she couldn’t rejoice when salvation came in the form of Swift Lopez.

  Loretta, cheeks flushed from bending over the oven, closed the stove door and swiped at a stray tendril of golden hair, her blue eyes shadowed with anxiety.

  “What’s wrong?” Amy set her packages on the table.

  Loretta threw up her hands. “Oh, Amy, I’m worried sick about Indigo.”

  “Why?” Amy stepped across the room. Loretta wasn’t one to stew over nothing. “She hasn’t come home yet, or what? She left school at the regular time.”

  “No, she came home.” Loretta’s mouth twisted. “Then immediately left again. I swear, Hunter’s too lenient. The Comanche way of child rearing isn’t enough in our society. He forgets that our people, men in particular, don’t always do the noble thing with a pretty, starry-eyed girl Indigo’s age.”

  “This sounds serious.”

  “It is serious. She’s carrying a torch for that Marshall fellow, the one from Jacksonville who’s so highfalutin that his name has a number stuck on the end.”

  Amy couldn’t hide a smile. “Perfectly ordinary people can be the third person in their family to bear the same name, Loretta.” She gave her cousin a comforting pat. “However, I agree. Mr. Marshall seems to have far too high an opinion of himself. I’ve seen how he acts when he comes to town. He never misses an opportunity to let us know he’s from Boston.”

  “Wherever that is. He walks like old Mrs. Hamstead just dosed him with sheep dung tea,” Loretta said with a sniff.

  Amy wrinkled her nose. “Sheep dung tea?”

  “Her latest remedy. Runs a body to death making trips to the necessary. It’s supposed to get the impurities out of you.”

  Momentarily forgetting her worries about Swift, Amy giggled. “I reckon if it has that effect, then maybe she’s right and it does. Now what’s this about Indigo and Mr. Marshall?”

  “She thinks the sun rises and sets in him, that’s what. Mark my words, that young man’ll do her wrong if he gets half a chance. I’ve seen that look in his eye. As far as he’s concerned, the rules don’t apply with a girl like her.”

  “Because she’s part Indian?” Amy’s scalp prickled. She had seen enough prejudice in this region against the few remaining rogue Indians and the Chinese to understand Loretta’s concerns without her voicing them. “Have you told Hunter?”

  “Yes, and he’s confident Indigo will send the man packing if he tries to touch her.” Loretta shrugged. “Hunter’s right. I’m sure she will. It’s her heart I’m worrying over, not her chastity. I’ve tried to talk to her, but she turns a deaf ear. She doesn’t understand how cruel some people can be to those of mixed blood. Hunter’s never allowed me to talk about it, for fear his children will feel ashamed of their heritage. I don’t want to make her feel inferior, God knows. But I don’t want her hurt, either.”

  Amy gnawed her lip. “Would you like me to talk to her?”

  “Oh, would you, Amy? She listens to you. For some reason she discounts half of what I say.”

  “What can her mother possibly know about falling in love?”

  “Enough to turn my hair gray. Was I ever that stubborn?”

  “You weren’t raised by Hunter. And our lives were—harder.” Amy picked up her packages. “I’ll take a turn through town and see if I can find her. If not, don’t let on I’ve looked for her. I’ll just wait and get her off alone tomorrow after school. If she realizes you talked to me, she’ll get her back up.”

  “There, you see? That’s what I try to tell Hunter. About her getting her back up. A girl her age should kowtow. She needs a firm hand, and he refuses to discipline her.”

  “That isn’t his way. Indigo will be all right, Loretta.” Amy clutched her packages more tightly. “Better for her to have a father like Hunter than one like Henry Masters was to you and me. At least Indigo’s not afraid to speak her mind.”

  “Amen.” Loretta’s eyes darkened with distaste as she recalled their childhood on Henry Masters’s farm in Texas. “God forbid that any child should have a father like Henry.” She shivered slightly, then seemed to shake off the memories. “At least Hunter has taught Indigo to stand up for herself. God pity the man who marries her, though. She’ll be okay on the love and honor part, but obey isn’t in her vocabulary.”

  She laughed. “I guess I shouldn’t speak ill of Henry. He did take care of you for three years after Aunt Rachel passed on. I’ll be forever grateful to him for that. Many a man would have sent a stepdaughter packing and let her fend for herself.”

  Not quite able to meet Loretta’s gaze, Amy pretended to be preoccupied with straightening her shawl. “Well, I’ll get on my way. No telling where Indigo may be off to.” She paused before opening the door. “Um, Loretta, give my best to Swift, won’t you? Tell him I’m sorry to have missed him?”

  Loretta’s blue eyes sharpened with suspicion. “Sorry to have missed him? Does this
mean you’ve had a change of heart?”

  Amy nibbled her lip. “It’s more like a change in tactics. Just tell him, please?”

  Clearly perplexed, Loretta nodded. “All right.”

  Amy walked the length of town twice and then circled behind the buildings into the woods, hoping to find Indigo sitting beneath a tree daydreaming, as the girl often did, but she was nowhere to be found. Before Amy knew it, the sun had dipped behind a hill. Assuming that Indigo had gone home, she decided to do likewise before she found herself in the woods without light to see by. Darkness fell swiftly in the mountains, and she knew her own shortcomings.

  Arms aching from carrying her packages, she hurried toward her house. As she approached, she gave the yard a quick once-over, frustrated by the black shadows. After hurrying up the steps, she shoved open the door, stepped inside, and shifted her packages so she had a free hand to manage the bolts.

  “Feel safe now?” a silken voice asked the moment she had shoved the locks home.

  Chapter 6

  AMY’S HEART LEAPED, AND SHE WHIRLED, DROPPING all her packages. Swift. Dear God, he had come in her house. She peered through the darkness. Faint traces of leather and tobacco smoke teased her nostrils. Pressing a hand to her throat, she croaked, “Whwhere are you, Swift?”

  “Right here.”

  The whisper by her ear made Amy squeak with startled annoyance. “Hell and damnation! Are you trying to make my heart fail?” She turned, straining to see. “Why are you in my house?”

  “Our house. We’re betrothed. What’s yours is mine,” he reminded her, his voice coming from a slightly different direction this time. “You are mine, as far as that goes.”

  She made a sound of protest but couldn’t articulate her thoughts.

  “Amy, love, you’ve forgotten everything I taught you. As blind as you are when the sun goes down, you should be more careful. It’s foolish to come in and bolt the door before you’re sure you’re alone. You didn’t even listen first. Someone could be hiding in here some night, waiting for you to lock up. You’d never undo the bolts quick enough to get away from him.”

  The veiled threat wasn’t lost on her. “I’m within hollering distance of Hunter and Loretta’s.”

  “If you could holler. When a man’s up to no good, the first thing he does is clamp a hand over a woman’s mouth.”

  Amy homed in on his voice and turned. “Until you came, I never had to worry about being accosted in my sitting room.”

  “And that’s your problem, isn’t it, Amy? You live in a safe little world, in a safe little town, in a safe little house, and life’s the same, day in and day out.” A strong arm caught her around the waist and drew her against a hard, lean body. Amy’s breath gushed from her lungs. “Now I’m here, and you can’t be sure from one minute to the next what might happen.”

  “I went to Loretta’s to visit today,” she cried.

  “While I wasn’t there. Sorry, Amy. I gave you your chance. Now we’ll try it my way.”

  With that, his lips claimed hers. For a crazy moment the kiss so bedazzled her that she couldn’t think, let alone feel afraid. She clutched his shoulders to arch away. Velvet over steel. That’s how his arms felt around her. She fought to keep her lips closed and lost the battle. He slanted his mouth and drove his tongue deep. Too late, she realized her teeth were parted.

  She tried to say his name, to wrench away, but his hold gave her no quarter. And his mouth. He bent her head back and kissed her until her senses spun. When he drew back for breath, she hung limp against him, legs atremble, her breath coming in ragged little spurts against the curve of his neck.

  Then fright coursed through her. The door. Both bolts were driven home. She was locked in here with him and hanging in his arms like a mindless lump, a sure invitation for him to kiss her again. And possibly more. More . . .

  Moving her hands to his chest, she gave a shove, surprised when he fell back. She knew he had more than enough strength to hold her—if he chose. She staggered away from him. At least, she hoped it was away. She still couldn’t see him.

  “Please, Swift, I w-want you to leave.” From out of the darkness his knuckles feathered along her cheek, startling her so that she leaped. His touch was light, so incredibly light that her breath caught. “Please, Swift.”

  Her voice shook. His hand withdrew. She swallowed and closed her eyes, expecting him to reach through the blackness and grab her again. Instead she heard him draw the bolts. The door swung open, throwing his tall frame into silhouette against the backdrop of moonlight that bathed her porch.

  “No more hedging, Amy. I’ll be back.” His voice slid over her like chill air, though in reality it held no menace, just a warm, vibrant promise. “Again and again. Until you forget to pull away, until you forget to be afraid, until you forget everything but the fact that you love me.”

  Moving as if he had no more substance than a shadow, he stepped out and closed the door, plunging her back into darkness. Amy stumbled forward over her packages and groped for the bolts. When she had driven them home, she pressed her forehead to the wood, weak with relief, her pulse erratic and racing.

  Through the cracks between the planks, his voice drifted to her. “Feel safe now?” She thought she heard him chuckle. Fury brought her head up. “A locked door won’t stop me, Amy. You know damned well it won’t. So why bother?”

  Amy listened. Had he left? Temples resounding with her own heartbeat, she turned, ears pricked for any noise at the windows, knowing even as she did that Swift could enter a house as stealthily as a cat.

  The seconds dragged by, mounting into minutes. Amy pressed her back against the door. Damn him! This was her home. It meant everything to her. He had no right to come in here.

  Shaking and disoriented, she groped her way to the table, lit the lantern, and crept to the bedroom. The coverlet on her bed was mussed, as if he had lain there, which to Amy was the ultimate invasion of privacy. A saucer from her kitchen sat on the nightstand, a snuffed cigarette in its well.

  She turned a slow circle. The things on top of her bureau had been moved, her brush, her mirror, her perfume. Her attention shifted to the underwear she had washed last night and draped on the bedstead to dry. She thought she remembered hanging the pantalets with the waist toward the bed, the ankles toward the room. Now they hung the opposite way. Rage filled her, a tremulous, blinding, impotent rage.

  Setting the lantern on her nightstand, she sank onto the bed to stare at the floor. She imagined his hands touching her underthings. What could she expect from a man who could kill in the blink of an eye, who had ridden with comancheros? Men like Swift made their own rules, as the mood struck.

  Amy hugged herself and tried to stop shivering. She knew Swift too well. He had declared war. How long would he remain satisfied with taunting her? Not long, if she guessed right. If nothing else worked, he would bend her to his will, one way or another. The thought terrified her as nothing else could. To be his wife, his property, forced to submit to him, to spend her life scurrying about, trying to please him so he wouldn’t get in a temper, to have no lawful recourse . . .

  The tree limb outside her window scraped against the glass, making her start. Trembling, she cupped a hand over her eyes. How much longer could she bear this constant tension? What in God’s name should she do? Swift had been raised by the Comanche. All his life he had seen men possessing reluctant women, Hunter included. Spiriting her away in the dead of night would be a game to him. And after? Memories of the comancheros slid through her mind. Those, and other memories. . . .

  Not again. Please, God, not again.

  Beads of sweat rose on Amy’s face. A year ago she never would have believed Swift capable of hurting her, but he wasn’t the same person she had known. Life had hardened him, turned him bitter and harsh. She feared him now, with bone-deep foreboding, and detested him for making her feel so horribly helpless.

  Gray morning light slanted through Amy’s window. She yawned and snuggled deepe
r into the down mattress, enjoying the drowsy contentment of awakening slowly to the smell of pork slab and coffee. Loretta was already up and fixing breakfast.

  Opening her eyes, Amy stared at her window, registering reality in measures. The white lace curtains, the floral paper, the post of her bedstead. She stiffened. This was her house.

  Coming wide awake, Amy shot from the bed, grabbed her wrapper, and crept to the doorway. Silence. She ventured through the sitting area to the rear of the house, noiselessly touching her bare feet to the floor, wincing when the boards creaked. Leaning around the door frame, she peered into the tiny kitchen. Feeble light from the small, high window cast the room into shadow.

  “Who’s here?” she called. “Indigo, is that you?”

  No one. Frowning, Amy stepped across the threshold, her gaze settling on the table. Three red roses stood in one of her vases. From Loretta’s flower bed? The bushes behind the Wolf house still had a few bedraggled blooms. Skin prickling, she turned and saw that her cast-iron skillet sat on the stove, brimming with fried potatoes, strips of pork slab, and eggs. She touched her palm to the coffeepot. Boiling hot.

  Amy crept back to the sitting room and stared at the door. The bolts were still driven home. “Hello?” Her throat tightened. “Swift, it has to be you.” No answer.

  Hurrying through the small house, Amy checked every hiding place, ending the search in her bedroom. Perplexed, she dug her toes into the rag rug and planted her hands on her hips. How had he gotten in, fixed a meal, and left with the door still locked?

  A splash of red on her pillow caught her attention. A rose lay across her pillowcase. She inched forward, staring at it. She hadn’t noticed it earlier when she got out of bed.

  Swift. He had come in, somehow, and then left. Despite the pure perfection of the rose, Amy was certain it hadn’t been left as a romantic gesture. He meant it to carry a message. Lock your door and windows. That won’t stop me. Nothing will. I stood over you while you slept, and you never knew I was here.