Carol Finch (5 page)

“Rafe—?” Her voice faltered. She wasn’t sure if she was asking him to move closer or back away.

“Karissa—?” Rafe stood there, savoring her unique scent, lost in the fathomless depths of her shimmering green eyes. He was torn between reckless desire and ruthless self-denial, unwillingly drawn to her and helpless in his inability to control the aching need that prowled through him.

Just when he felt himself give in to the overwhelming need to draw her into his arms and taste her, a voice called out, “Ah, there you are, Major.”

Rafe shook himself from the bedeviling trance and stepped back. He would gladly have promoted Lieutenant Johnson on the spot, for his timely interruption. A few more moments and Rafe would have pulled Karissa into his arms, sampled the sweet nectar of those full lips and abandoned the good sense he’d spent years accumulating.

“What’s the problem, Lieutenant?” Rafe asked. His voice sounded as if it had rusted.

“One of our men was suddenly taken ill. The post surgeon wants to speak to you about relieving him of his duties until he’s back on his feet,” Lieutenant Johnson reported.

“Tell Doc Winston I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Rafe took Karissa’s arm and steered her back to officers’ quarters. “I’m sorry to cut your walk short,” he said very formally.

“Just as well. I have a stack of mending to tend. But thank you for the grand tour.”

She didn’t protest when he practically shoveled her into the room then secured the door for the night. Rafe leaned against the wall and inhaled a steadying breath. Willfully he forced all thoughts of Karissa from his mind. It wasn’t easy, but he was the commandant of this post and his duties always came first.

He wondered why he’d had so much trouble remembering that the past two days.

R
afe spent the following day doing exactly the same thing he had done the day before—and the day before that. Tracking down illegal squatters. He and his patrol had been led on a hair-raising chase over hill and dale before capturing four men who resisted arrest and had to be forcefully subdued.

Tired, irritable and hungry, Rafe rode into the fort. The place looked normal, with off-duty soldiers strolling about. But something didn’t feel quite right. Rafe glanced suspiciously toward the officers’ quarters. Karissa damn well better be where she was supposed to be.

He suspected that she had used their tour the previous night to case the area, looking for a niche in the shadows to hide out before making her getaway.

He had anticipated that she would wait until she thought she’d lulled him into a false sense of control and had him thinking she had accepted captivity before she made her escape. But knowing Karissa, his attempt to second-guess her strategy would work
against
him, not
for
him. Much as he hated to admit it, she was a mental step ahead of him.

The woman was too smart by half.

Rafe shifted uneasily in the saddle as he passed by the officers’ quarters. The sixth sense that he’d learned to rely on warned him that something was wrong. It left him with an uneasy tension that prompted him to make fast work of tending his horse. In record time he shut Sergeant in his stall and headed straight for his quarters. He needed to see for himself that Karissa was still in custody.

A growl exploded from his lips when he opened the door to find his room in shambles. The sheets and blankets were in a tangled heap. The table had been up-ended; the bookshelf had toppled over, leaving his military manuals strewn about like casualties of war. The glass globe of the lantern lay in shattered pieces on the floor and oil stained the floorboards.

“Damn her!” Rafe said furiously as he stormed outside.

“She’s gone?” Micah hooted. “I presumed—”

Rafe wheeled on his longtime friend. “You
never
presume when it comes to that woman!” he fumed. “The moment I think we have reached a workable truce she rips my quarters to shreds and escapes.” He swung his arms in agitated gestures. “This is the thanks I get for guarding the land she wants to claim and keeping it free of other squatters.”

“I’ll go after her,” Micah volunteered hurriedly. “I don’t think you’re in the right frame of mind to track her down.”

“Oh, no, you won’t,” Rafe countered as he stalked off. “She is my responsibility and this is another act of rebellion against my position of authority.”

Rafe didn’t add that, although Micah was probably better suited for pursuing Karissa, he was suffering from an absurd feeling of possessiveness and protectiveness.
He
wanted to be the one to track her down.
He
wanted to be the one to discover she hadn’t put herself in harm’s way.
He
wanted to be the one to rake her over live coals for destroying his quarters and thumbing her nose at his orders. And, by damned, he was going to drag her back to the post to serve her time for breaking the laws governing the upcoming Land Run.

“Um…Rafe?” Micah murmured as he followed his friend.

“What?” he growled as he headed back to the stables.

“I know you’re furious,” Micah called after him, “but outright murder doesn’t become you. You are first and always an officer and a gentleman.”

“Maybe so, but right now I would gladly resign my command for five minutes of justified fury! When I get that woman back in custody she is not going to see the light of day for a week!” He broke into a run and sprinted into the stables. “Assume command of this post while I’m gone, Micah!”

Karissa brushed her fingertips over the bruise on her cheek that still throbbed hours after her harrowing encounter with Harlan Billings. He had tried to force himself on her after he had escorted her back to Rafe’s quarters for the evening. Karissa shook off the repulsive thought of how close she had come to being violated. She had made the mistake of dismissively turning her back on Harlan—a mistake she would never make with any man again.

Considering the fact that she had left Rafe’s room in shambles—as a show of defiance that first night—she really didn’t expect him to believe that lecherous toad
had assaulted her. She, after all, was an escaped prisoner and Harlan was a soldier under Rafe’s command.

She clutched the torn neckline of her borrowed dress and waited until the wagon in which she’d hidden had reached a thicket of trees. The driver, who was oblivious to the fact that a stowaway was tucked beneath the tarp in the wagon bed, went merrily on his way. Karissa wormed from concealment and hopped off the wagon. Casting a quick glance to make sure the driver hadn’t noticed her, she dashed into the underbrush.

She knew she didn’t have much time before Rafe discovered she was missing. She had heard the driver of the supply wagon call out a greeting when he encountered the returning army patrol. By now, Rafe would have seen the destruction in his room and assumed she had spitefully laid the place to ruin and made her escape.

Karissa predicted that Rafe would tear off to the site where he had originally apprehended her. Therefore, she would be asking for more trouble than she had already encountered if she made a beeline for her property.

“Well, what have we here?” came a voice from the shadows of the trees.

Karissa refused to let herself freeze up in fear. She had endured one near brush with disaster today and that was more than enough. She had to lose herself in the underbrush and wait until she could use the gathering darkness to her advantage. She didn’t have time to retrieve the bag of men’s clothing and supplies she had buried on her claim site. But she felt exposed and vulnerable while wearing a dress, and whoever had sneaked up on her had realized she was a woman.

When she heard two more male voices behind her, panicked desperation spurted through her veins. Karissa grabbed the front of her skirt to keep from tripping and
dashed southeast, veering away from the cover of the trees toward more familiar territory. She knew the property she wanted to claim like the back of her hand. If she could elude the men until darkness became her protector she was sure she could find a place to hide for the night.

Terror and outrage threatened to overwhelm her when she heard one of the men breathing down her neck. She let out a bloodcurdling shriek when he clamped hold of her shoulder and jerked her backward. As she stumbled off balance she raised an elbow to bash in her attacker’s nose. He yelped in pain and covered his face, giving Karissa time to wrest free. Unfortunately, the other two men overtook her and she found herself shoved facedown in the grass.

She screeched, she kicked and she clawed, but three to one odds overpowered her. Karissa screamed bloody murder when two of the men rolled her onto her back and pinned her shoulders to the ground.

A bearded face loomed above her. “You nearly broke my nose, bitch,” the man growled as he yanked up her skirts. “And now you’re going to pay for it, thrice over.”

When the man dropped to his knees, Karissa thrust out her leg and caught him squarely in the groin. He howled like a coyote then lambasted her with curses. But Karissa kept kicking at him and straining against the two men who held her shoulders to the ground. She felt her strength waning and knew it was only a matter of time before these lusty scoundrels did their worst. But Karissa refused to surrender, refused to make it easy on her assailants. She had fought her way through life and it was second nature to battle even the most difficult odds.

“Let her go!” Rafe’s booming voice rumbled in the distance and Karissa slumped in relief.

The men sprang away from her and wheeled toward the mounted soldier, who loomed in the twilight like an avenging angel. When one of the men made a grab for his pistol Rafe’s rifle barked viciously. Karissa glanced sideways to see one of her assailants wilt to the ground, clutching his arm.

“I said back off!” Rafe thundered as he took the second man’s measure on the sight of his rifle.

While dismounting, Rafe kept his weapon trained on the two men left standing. He had ridden hell-for-leather, itching to strangle Karissa for spitefully destroying his quarters and escaping from the fort. But his anger was nothing compared to the outrage that overwhelmed him when he’d heard Karissa’s shriek in the distance and had ridden over the hill to see these three men trying to rape her. He considered himself a fair and just man, but committing cold-blooded murder was starting to appeal to him greatly.

“Sit down in the grass, back to back,” he ordered gruffly. Reaching into his saddlebag, he retrieved three lengths of rope. “Karissa, bind them together.”

She rolled unsteadily to all fours then staggered to her feet. When she swayed slightly, he realized she was suffering from the aftereffects of the attack. Nevertheless, she gathered her composure and tied the two uninjured men together while Rafe inspected the third ruffian’s bullet wound.

When he heard the rending of cloth, he glanced up to see that Karissa had torn the hem off her tattered gown to provide a bandage. “I should let him bleed to death after what he tried to do to me,” she said bitterly, “but I’m not quite as heartless as he is.”

Rafe noticed her hand was still shaking as she offered the improvised bandage. He knew how it felt to ride an adrenaline high, knew she was barely holding herself together. Sooner or later traumatic shock from the unnerving incident was going to catch up with her. Aggravated though he was with her, he was still going to be there to catch her when she fell apart.

“I’m bleeding to death!” the injured man railed as he stared at his bloodstained jacket.

“You’ll live,” Rafe diagnosed as he hurriedly bandaged his captive’s wound. “Considering what you tried to do, you’re lucky I didn’t aim for your heart.”

Swiftly he bound the man’s hands then hoisted him to his feet. With Karissa’s assistance, he marched the men toward the nearest tree and tethered them. “I’ll send a patrol out to retrieve you,” he told the men. “Until then, you can sit here and rot.”

To his surprise, Karissa sidled up beside him, clutched his hand and murmured, “Thank you.”

“This wouldn’t have happened if you had stayed put,” he said, and scowled.

She jerked up her head so quickly that the last of her disheveled coiffure came tumbling down her shoulders, catching in the last rays of sunset like dancing flames. When Rafe noticed the discoloration on her cheek and the gaping neckline of her dress, his fist clenched around his rifle. Vicious fury took a bite out of him as he glared at the three men.

“They didn’t leave the marks,” she told him shakily.

His narrowed gaze swung back to her. “Then who did?”

“You don’t want to know and probably couldn’t care less,” she muttered.

Rafe clutched her arm to shepherd her toward his
horse. “When someone assaults a woman who is under my protection, I care,” he assured her gruffly. “Even if said woman probably deserved what she got for her reckless daring.”

To Rafe’s disbelief she didn’t snap back at him. She just sort of crumpled beside him and he reflexively reached out to steady her on her feet. He heard her muffled sob and felt her trembling hands clutch at his arm. In the blink of an eye his frustration evaporated and he gathered her compassionately to him.

“Damn it,” she mumbled against his chest. “The very last thing I meant to do was let you see me cry.”

“It’s all right,” he whispered as he impulsively brushed his lips over her bruised cheek. “You’re going to be fine now. After a warm meal and hot bath you’ll be your sassy self again.”

Well, so much for reading her every paragraph of the riot act—forward and backward, twice. When she broke down and soaked the jacket of his uniform with tears, he couldn’t work up the anger to chastise her.

Yes, she had it coming for putting herself in harm’s way. And yes, he had wanted to be the one to deliver a scathing lecture. But when a woman as strong as Karissa buckled to her emotions Rafe couldn’t bring himself to do anything except offer comfort.

And he was not even going to think about how good she felt in his arms or how much satisfaction he derived from being the one who had rescued her from disaster. As hard as he tried, it was impossible not to become emotionally involved with this woman, even if she was all wrong for him. Even if he was betrothed…

The thought prompted Rafe to release her and step back into his own space. He scooped Karissa off the
ground, gently settled her on Sergeant’s back and then swung up behind her.

When he reined toward the fort, she clutched his hand. “I need to fetch my belongings,” she said brokenly. “I buried them near the spring…please?”

Rafe relented and allowed her to take the reins to ride toward her abandoned campsite. He listened to her muffled sobs for as long as he could stand and then said, “I’m truly sorry you met with trouble, Karissa. No woman deserves to be treated so disrespectfully. Rest assured that those three men will be punished severely.”

Ten minutes later Karissa halted beside the rock-covered hillside where a spring trickled into a shimmering pool. Rafe dismounted and then set her to her feet. Swaying slightly, Karissa approached the site of her buried cache and used a nearby rock to unearth her carpetbag. And then to Rafe’s tormented dismay, she burst into tears all over again. He tried to tell himself that it was a manipulative ruse, aimed at drawing his sympathy, but he doubted that even Karissa was that good an actress.

“Can’t you bend your damnable rules and just let me stay here?” she said on a sob and hiccup. “Every soldier at the fort thinks I’m your live-in mistress, even if most of them have been polite and respectful in my presence. I don’t want to go back there. I would rather take my chances out here.” She clung desperately to the carpetbag in her quaking hands. “At least out here I have a disguise for protection. If I had been dressed like a boy, those men wouldn’t have accosted me and your—”

Karissa bit down on her tongue before she blurted out that Harlan Billings had tried to do the very same thing to her. She knew Rafe was loyal to the army and to the
men in his command. She had no doubt whatsoever that he would take Harlan’s word over hers.