“Field surgery is a survival tactic and little more,” Dr. Brandeis said. “Miss Warren, may I say that I find you far more useful in the field than your father?”
John Harrington stamped upon his toe, and the good doctor winced. “You may say it,” John told him softly. “If you are seeking a court-martial or a bullet in your back while we’re within the scrub.”
Brandeis had his own kind of confidence. He shrugged, stepped forward, took Teela’s hand, and kissed it. “Adieu, fair maiden. If you’re ever inclined to aid in the tending of our poor, wounded patients, I shall be most anxious to have you at my side once again.”
“Thank you,” Teela said, very grateful to him, for she hadn’t thought anything about the day would cause her to smile.
“Good-bye, my dear, take care,” John told her, stepping forward. Teela closed her eyes while he set a chaste kiss upon her forehead.
“You’re welcome to come to the house, gentlemen, should you find the time,” Jarrett told them.
“Thank you.” John stepped back and, with Joshua Brandeis, boarded his ship once again.
“Come,” Tara said to Teela.
She allowed Tara to lead her toward Cimarron while Jarrett remained by the dock, staring reflectively at the ship and the river.
Teela was startled to realize that she was trembling now that it was all over, and she didn’t know if it was because of all the horror of death and injury she had witnessed, or because she had come so close to James again before he had disappeared. Perhaps she even trembled because his status had worsened since she had come, maybe because she had come. Most whites would not believe him a traitor to any cause. The army men who knew him, the Floridians he had befriended.
But there were always men like Michael Warren’s troops. And they had made an outlaw of James.
They came to the porch, and Tara sat her upon one of the wooden rocking chairs there. “I’ll have the bath brought up,” she told Teela. “Your dress is ruined; nothing will take out that much blood.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Teela said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Tara agreed. “No matter what its cost, clothing is cheap. Life is dear and precious.”
She went on into the house. Teela still sat on the porch, watching the sun fall and create glorious colors over the quiet horizon. Jarrett McKenzie returned to his house, stared at her hard, then walked in. She leapt up, deeply disturbed by the look he had given her, wanting both to apologize and defend herself at the same time.
Not finding him in the breezeway or the parlor, she tapped upon the library door and opened it without waiting for a reply.
He was there, hands folded behind his back as he stared into the cold ashes in the fireplace. He stood very much as his brother had stood the first time she had seen James. He didn’t turn around as she entered. He knew it was she who had come.
“Close the door, Miss Warren,” he told her.
She did so.
He turned around. His gaze swept over her. She felt a patch of some poor soldier’s blood sticky against her cheek. She lifted a hand to wipe it away, realized it would not go so simply, and let her hand fall.
“Just what are your intentions regarding my brother, Miss Warren?” he demanded.
“Your pardon?” she whispered.
“Are you playing a game? Is that it?”
“Excuse me, sir, but shouldn’t this line of questioning be direct at your brother rather than me?”
He shook his head, unrelenting. “Perhaps under normal circumstances. But these aren’t normal at all, are they? My brother is a half-breed, caught in bitter times. He could quite easily be dead before it’s over, slain by either side. At best, for the foreseeable future he will abide in the forest, the hammock, and the swamp. He needs to give his full attention to surviving with his body and soul intact. He cannot afford to be distracted by a young woman entranced with some romantic notion of carrying out a minor indiscretion with an intriguing red man. So again, I ask you, what are your intentions regarding my brother?”
She felt herself trembling uneasily, longing to strike out at him, wondering what he wanted from her. Her eyes narrowed, she stood very straight, her chin high. “There has been nothing ‘minor,’ sir, in anything that I have done.”
“Why did you run like a little idiot into the gunfire today?” he demanded angrily.
“Because the shots were so close to Cimarron. Close to where Ja—I had to… know!” she cried back.
“Was it worth it? Worth the fear you caused us, the possible repercussions should your father hear of this. Tell me, did you get your answers?”
“Yes!” she snapped. “Yes, yes! I saw him. I saw him whole and well, and I know that he is alive.”
Jarrett exhaled slowly, watching her. “You saw him today?”
She nodded and spoke very softly. ”The others did not see him. He collected the wounded body of an unconscious friend and disappeared. But he was alive and well, uninjured himself.”
Jarrett nodded after a moment. He continued to stare at her. “I don’t mean to hurt you,” he said after a long moment. “But he is my brother. I have no choice.”
“He is your brother but a grown man,” she said, groping for the right words. “I have not …”
He smiled. “You have not had this affair on your own. I know. I am just frightened. For you both. I don’t see where it can lead.”
“Perhaps your brother is not interested in leading me anywhere.”
“Perhaps he feels that there is nowhere to lead. And, indeed, have you given such things any thought? Would you be a happy young bride, quite possibly carrying a child, ducking through the foliage and running for your life while soldiers chased you down?” He paused, and Teela felt a sweep of color rush to her cheeks. It wouldn’t matter if James was descended from four grandparents as white as snow if she was still carrying on an illicit affair.
There could be no pretending that she was not deeply involved with James when she talked to his brother; he had found her with James. He had never appeared to judge her; neither had Tara. But it seemed he wanted to be as blunt and brutal as he could at the moment. “Now, if they were chasing you, soldiers might see the red of your hair and hesitate, but I tell you, I have watched this wretched war a long time now, and I have seen how indiscriminately men can kill. For the Seminoles, I tell you, it’s a very hard life. Sometimes the heat in the hammocks and swamps is over a hundred degrees. Sometimes, in the north, it falls below thirty. Sometimes they run through dangerous water up to their throats to escape the soldiers.”
He fell silent, watching her.
Teela willed herself to speak quietly and to try to remain calm and dignified. “I have told you, Jarrett, that I don’t believe your brother is interested in leading me anywhere.”
“I repeat, my brother feels that he has nowhere to lead anyone at this moment other than down a path to destruction. You need to consider going home,” he told her.
“I will consider it. Am I no longer welcome here?”
He sighed, shaking his head. “You are always welcome here. I’m just trying to make you understand the situation. Again, I fear for you both.”
“I am full-grown as well,” she told him.
He smiled at last. “Full-grown and full of fire, but woefully innocent of the dangers to be found here!” he assured her. “And that danger includes James.”
“Wherever it goes,” she said slowly after a moment, “I seem to have no choice but to follow.”
“You little fool,” he said, but the chastising words were said gently now. “You are in love with him.”
“Am I?”
“So it seems.”
“What of your brother?” she heard herself whisper.
“I don’t know,” Jarrett answered honestly. “He still grieves for a wife and a child. And a nation. And this war comes first with him now. It has to. Until he comes to terms with himself, he can have no life.”
She continued to stare at him
, stubbornly proud.
“Go upstairs,” he commanded softly. “Your bath will be ready. The blood of others is not comfortable to wear.”
He turned back to the fire. Teela bit her lower lip, turned, and left the library behind to hurry up the stairs.
Tara was in her room along with two of the household servants, a lean, slim black boy called Jake and another, slightly older young Irishman named Sean. They hauled huge kettles of steaming water to the metal-rimmed wooden hip tub, pouring it in.
“I think we’re all set here, thank you, boys,” Tara said. When they had gone, she said, “There’s some hot brandy-laced tea right on the small table, Teela. Towels and soap there by the tub.” Just before she left the room, she paused in the doorframe. “I thought you might like a little privacy for a while, some moments alone. Take your time, and come down this evening whenever you feel like you’d enjoy company again.”
“Thanks,” Teela told her. She walked forward, almost overwhelmed with the kindness and understanding she always seemed to feel from Tara. She hesitated, realizing again that she was covered in blood. “Thank you,” she said again.
Tara nodded and closed the door behind her.
Teela moved to stand before the full-length swivel mirror near the bed, by the washstand. She looked like the murder victim in a theatrical production. But it was no play, and there had been real victims, and their death had been a very violent form of murder indeed. She touched her cheeks again, shivered, and began ripping the blood-spattered clothing from her body. She tossed it all by the fire and gratefully sank into the hot water in the hip tub. She threw the pins from her hair and sank beneath the water. For a few minutes, she couldn’t seem to scrub herself strenuously enough, from her scalp to her feet. Finally, convinced she was free from the crimson stains of death, she laid her head back against the rim of the tub, her fingers resting idly atop it as the steam rose above her.
Fear shrieked within her as a hand suddenly clamped firmly over her mouth. Her fingers dug into the tub as her body stiffened, then tore at the hand upon her mouth as she strained to twist and see her assailant.
She went dead still. James lifted his hand from her mouth, drawing a finger to his lips.
He had come straight in from the bush where she had last seen him, bare-chested, hair still queued back, a knife thrust into a sheath at his hip. He held a rifle in his free hand. His doeskin boots were damp, as if he had waded through water in his trek to return to Cimarron.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, furious that he had frightened her so. She hugged her knees within the tub, inching back against it as far as she could.
“John’s ship remains at the dock. Axe there any soldiers in the house?”
She shook her head. “No,” she told him. “Even John has remained aboard the ship.”
“Why?”
“They are going to bring the wounded to the hospital at Fort Brooke as soon as possible.
He walked away from her, going to the table where Tara had left her the tea tray. Along with the liquor-imbued brew, there was a plate of small meat pastries and tea cakes. James set down his rifle, selected a pastry with each hand, wolfed them down, and then poured a cup of tea. He drank it swiftly, shuddering with the warmth of the brandy. Then his eyes were back on her again, and he returned to the tub, staring at her. He arched a brow, then knelt down beside her. “I was very hungry,” he said softly. “Hazard of the job.”
“Why were you in that battle today?” she asked him.
“Scarcely a battle. A skirmish, nothing more.”
“What does it matter what you call it? Men died.”
“Do you refer to red men or the white ones?”
“All of them.”
He shook his head slowly after a moment. “I just don’t think you realize sometimes that I am as much a part of them as I am a part of … of this. Jarrett’s life. The men out there today who let out their awful war cries. The ones in breech clouts, turbans, and feathers. Who speak a different language, who paint their faces. Scalp white soldiers. And their wives.”
“Why were you in the skirmish?” she asked stubbornly.
“Because I was with those men. They were part of the group Osceola and friends liberated from the detention center at Fort Brooke the second day of June.”
“Liberated?” she queried softly. “Some men are saying that Osceola forced some of them to escape whether they wanted to or not. Even here, at your brother’s house, I hear all the rumors and news.”
“I don’t know exactly what occurred,” James said evasively. He swore softly with impatience. “I am one with them and not one with them. They seldom let me in on their plans if they involve bloodshed; they are well aware of how divided my life has become. I come into council meetings to give opinions, as spokesperson for what remains of my own tribe, and to advise on what the white soldiers may or may not do.”
“One day,” she warned softly, “Osceola might kill you.”
He shook his head. “You do not know him, you do not understand him. He will not kill me. He knows that I was with many of the men, guiding them southwest-wardly. Once they’ve reached their families, I’ll know who still wishes to come in and accept the government’s compensation for moving west. Today was not meant to be a battle on anyone’s part. The soldiers weren’t really looking for Indians; the Seminoles definitely weren’t looking for the soldiers.”
The water was growing chill. She lifted her hands together and looked at them.
“There was so much blood!” she whispered miserably.
“And so much more will be spilled,” he said. “And you need to be out of it!”
“I have become a part of it.”
“You are no part of it! Do you think that a day trailing after the soldiers will make it so? You belong in your silks and lace, behind a spinet. On the ballroom dance floor.”
“I was good on the field today.”
“Patching up Seminoles as well as good white soldiers?”
“Yes!”
“I might have lain out there, injured, bleeding.”
“Stop it!”
“You shouldn’t have been where you were.”
“I was afraid you might have lain out there, injured, bleeding.”
“You cannot be afraid for me.”
“You cannot fight!”
“That’s what you refuse to see! Sometimes I have to fight. Realize it, accept it. I was born to this. You were not. Go home, go away!”
“You had to be with the warriors; I had to be with the soldiers.”
“Don’t you see, it is not your place!”
“It was where I had to be!”
“Damn you! You are risking your life!”
“You risk yours constantly.”
“It is my battle, my very existence. It is not your war to wage!”
“I’ve every right—”
“No, damn you, you have not!”
He was suddenly up on his feet, reaching for her, catching her hands, pulling her to her feet. She shivered violently with the chill of night air against her as the water sluiced from her body. He seemed heedless of it. Nothing seemed to matter at all, no words were important. He caught her about the waist and lifted her from the tub. Instinctively she clung to him, arms about his neck as he strode across the room, water dripping from her damp body and soaking hair across the fine rug and highly polished hardwood floors. She closed her eyes for a moment, nearly dizzy with the sweet pleasure of having him near again. She didn’t care what he was saying to her. His chest was hot and sleek, rippling with hard muscles, alive with the thundering beat of his heart. She was so very glad he was here, and yet afraid in a way she had never been before.
She had lived without him now, after knowing him. She had come to feel the loneliness. The cold of having touched the fire, then knowing privation from it. She hadn’t known how to describe what she felt for him, and now she knew that Jarrett was right. She was in love with him. All of the reasons th
at she should not love him added to the fact that she did. That he would not take an easy path, that he demanded he be recognized for all that he was, that he could not help but fight the injustices against the Seminoles, all these things were a part of what had so entrapped her. Perhaps. Yet she had known as well the first time she had seen him that he would enter into her heart and soul, into her dreams, her longings. It did not help to realize how deeply she cared, how much anguish she would feel when he slipped away again, a wraith in the night. An outlaw, a renegade.
Her eyes opened and met his. “You cannot so simply do this,” she informed him.
“No?”
“You slip into a room without knocking, after throwing threats at me over the fallen body of a friend. Your manners are those of—”
“Of a savage?” he suggested.
“Don’t play games with me!”
They had come to the bed. He held her tightly for a moment, then eased her down, coming atop her.
“But I feel very savage,” he said softly.
The scent of him was sensually musky and masculine. His flesh seemed to generate a heat that eclipsed everything around it. His body against hers stirred desire and haunting memories and sweet promises of magic.
“Then perhaps you should run back into the woods,” she told him.
“Perhaps not. Perhaps I am right where I belong for this moment.”
“Where you will not stay when the moment has passed!” she challenged him.
He inhaled sharply, staring down at her. “You,” he said sharply, “need to go home. To remember that my manners are wretched. That I belong in the woods. Do you understand me? You need to remember all that!”
“You needn’t keep warning me!” she cried.
She was startled by the sudden violence of his movement as he leapt from the bed. She shivered, her naked flesh left cold by his departure. But he was as restless as a panther stalking the woods, as swift, as fluid, casting aside doeskin boots and trousers, covering her once again with the warmth of his body.
A savage warmth, as he had warned …
He had never taken her so swiftly, with so little thought to the art of seduction, with such a stark purpose. She wanted to feel anger, to protest his invasion, thunder against his very touch. She swore softly, damning him. She did allow her fist to pummel his back. But then a ragged sob escaped her, and she held tight to him. The encroaching darkness of the night seemed to sweep over her, and into her, and under its cover she dared to let the intensity of her longings rise and soar. In time she was dimly aware of a staggering constriction within him, of a thrust that seemed to tear into her heart. Warmth like a flow of molten lava filled her, and she shuddered violently, finding sweet release in a moment of all but blinding pleasure.