Comanche Haven (The Loflin Legacy: Book 1) (5 page)

Gripping the reins tighter, Celia
decided Seth was to blame. She hadn’t expected him to be at the
stage when she’d arrived. If she were completely honest with
herself, she’d have to say she’d created a sort of perfect scenario
of how her first meeting with Seth Loflin would go and his surprise
arrival ruined it. Celia’s self-deprecating smile testified to how
different the scenario had actually played out.

Chapter 2

Welcome Home

The scream sounded like a panther. Seth
came to attention atop the bluff and squinted into the sun. The
bold, orange orb making a final decent over the horizon made it
hard to see what was going on in the creek below. Having been one
hell of a day already, Seth had no doubt things were about to get
even more interesting.

There it was again!
Below, Seth could make out a shadowy outline of a
woman struggling against two men in the water. He maneuvered his
horse in behind a copse of scrub trees before sliding silently out
of the saddle. Crouched to get a better look, Seth could tell the
woman was doing everything she could to stop the men from attacking
her. They’d managed to tear her clothes off and all which remained
was a set of pantalets and a camisole.

The bluff was too high to make out much
of who was involved in the struggle, but Seth saw the woman yank
free from one of the men, sending him sprawling with a high kick to
his chin. Her long black hair fell forward obscuring her vision.
The other man used the opportunity to grab her from behind while
she tried to shove her lank hair from her face. Ironically, the
fact she wore only pantalets and a camisole gave her the freedom to
defend herself. The length of a dress would have burdened her and
she might have already succumbed to their attack. Displaying a real
fighting skill, the woman elbowed the assailant in the ribs with
enough force to knock the air from him, before sending him wheezing
into the muddy water.

“
Grab her!” The younger of
the two shouted to the other as the woman made a break for the
bank.

The older man just getting to his feet
splayed his arms wide and snarled at his companion. “Why don’t you
grab her?” he growled out the challenge between gasps for air.
“This was your idea.” He countered as he rested his hands on his
knees and tried to breath.

“
Yeah, but how was I to know
she was such a hellcat.” The other yelled back over his shoulder as
he snared the woman’s ankle sending her sprawling into the creek.
“Grab her arms,” the younger man ordered, as he tried to tackle her
while she flailed wildly in the murky water. Seth watched in
growing disbelief. The older man obeyed and made a lunge for her.
She kneed him in the balls sending him face first into the
brink.

The longer things went, the more
confident Seth grew of the woman’s strength and prowess in the face
of danger. She’d been trained in hand-to-hand fighting it appeared.
Her blows were timely and accurate. This was no helpless female. He
had to admit, she was doing a fine job of holding them off with
nothing more than a parasol. The two continued to stalk her from
opposite sides like wolves closing in on the prey. With whimpers of
distress, she poked timidly at her assailants until they drew close
enough. When they came within reach, the woman turned into a
warrior with a loud war cry and charging both men using the parasol
like a vicious weapon on their heads. Seth couldn’t help but smile
at her grit. He settled his rifle on the low-slung limp of a
sycamore and drew a bead on the younger one’s chest. “That’s it,
honey. Keep ‘em occupied just a minute more…”

“
Leave her be!” Seth’s voice
reverberated off the bluff walls on either side of the
creek.

The two men stumbled to a halt before
searching the bank and undergrowth. “Who’s there?” the younger one
called.

“
Seth Loflin. Now back away
from the woman slow and easy.” He watched as the younger one looked
in the older one’s direction. “Fuck you, Loflin!” the younger
yelled as he drew his gun and aimed it at the woman’s
head.

The woman stumbled backward with a
scream.

On a release of breath, Seth pulled the
trigger. The bullet hit its mark. Seth watched as the man jerked
before spinning away and falling backward in the creek making a
loud splash. He was dead before he hit the water. Men who attacked
women were lower than dirt in his eyes. He sure as hell didn’t
sanction such behavior out of men he’d hired. Good
riddance!

The older man wheeled with his revolver
in his hand. “Holy mother of…” Panic gripped his words as he
scanned the top of the bluff. “We didn’t do nothing!” His words
bounced off the steep embankment as his head darted back and forth
searching for Seth. Water slouched under foot as the woman backed
away stunned and shaking.

The assailant’s next words
vibrated with fear off the bluff wall. “Look, Loflin, it was all a
mistake. She came on to
us!
We didn’t do nothing wrong.”

“
Or maybe I got here just in
time.” Seth’s voice was hard with anger and irony. “You made one
mistake I’m sure of, ReMour.”

The man’s eyes settled on Seth as he
emerged from the scrub bushes. Gaining a bit of his bravado back,
he yelled, “Yeah, what’s that, Loflin?”

“
Stealing from me. You know
I can’t abide a thief.” Seth raised his rifle, centered the site on
the one he called ReMour and yelled. “We can handle this one of two
ways. You can turn yourself in peaceable to the sheriff or we can
take care of the problem right here and right now, your
choice.”

ReMour’s lips peeled back in a sardonic
sneer. “The almighty Loflin lost some of his precious money at the
Tyler Savings and Loan. Big fuckin’ deal. You got plenty more where
that came from. I’ll tell ya what, Loflin.”

Seth watched as the robber’s hand
shook. “What, you son-of-a-bitch?”

“
I’ll make a deal with ya.”
ReMour watched Seth with one eye squinted against the sun’s
glare.

“
Go on.”

“
Let me go and I’ll leave
the money and the girl goes free. That’s fair ain’t it?”

“
You’re turning yourself in,
ReMour. Or, we settle it now. That’s the deal. No harm comes to the
woman either way cause she stays with me. That’s fair.”

Seth waited.

ReMour’s next move was lightning fast.
His gun was out of the holster and his hand came down on the hammer
in a gunslinger’s repeating trick shot as the woman stumbled
backward into the water.

Seth pulled the trigger. Within an
instant, it was over. ReMour’s jerky forward motion made him
resemble a marionette’s puppet before he landed face first in the
creek.

Death was a sticky business but in
self-defense or the defense of another, Seth saw no other choice.
Shoving his gun back into its scarab, he mounted up and headed down
the steep embankment to the water’s edge and the woman who
struggled still to get out of the sucking mud of the Shooter Creek.
Her body glistened in the late afternoon sunlight as she did her
best to get out. Seth wondered at the strange sense that he’d seen
her before. She cursed low with the verbiage most often reserved
for a man as she struggled to free herself from the mud. Her voice
sounded familiar, but he couldn’t be sure this far from the water.
Still the feeling that he knew her nagged at him, causing Seth to
move more quickly in her direction. The odds were great that he was
wrong but his gut told him different.

Wet hair and meager clothing wasn’t a
good combination with night setting in. Seth knew what the cold
could do to a person’s body. It would be dark soon. Figuring the
water was several degrees colder than the air already, Seth knew
he’d have a half-chilled woman on his hands. She wouldn’t last long
under those circumstances.

***

Carrying the blanket from his
saddlebag, Seth rushed forward as he saw the woman slump into the
water. She’d fainted dead away! He reached her and gathered her up
in his arms. Freeing her foot, he carried her to the bank before
splaying the blanket and depositing her in the middle. Wrapped in a
cocoon, she moaned and her eyelids fluttered open. Another kind of
surprise swept over him as he lifted the hair from her face, only
this one had the welcoming force of a warm zephyr. He wondered with
all that had happened, if he wasn’t hallucinating. “Celia?” Seconds
ticked by before he found his voice again. “What are you doing out
here? Where’s Broken Horse?” His temper got the better of him as he
checked her pulse and watched her eyes focus again. “Damnation,
Celia! Are you all right?” The realization of what could have
happened set in and had his next words started with an oath. “Damn
it, what happened to Broken Horse?

“
He’s dead.” Grief flooded
her beautiful green eyes. “Seth?” She breathed his name and his
heart constricted.

“
Broken Horse?” she
whispered.

Without thinking, Seth took his hand
and brushed the remaining strands of hair from her face. Her skin
was like burnished gold in the waning light. “I’ll start a fire and
then look for him,” he muttered, irritated at the effect she always
had on him. Her hair in his hands felt like silk and brought back
too many old memories. He couldn’t think about those
now.

Celia rose up, leaning on her elbow,
and pulled the blanket close. Still shaking, she inhaled and then
slowly released the breath on a shudder. “Broken Horse, they, they
killed him,” She said quietly.

Seth stopped picking up the wood needed
for a fire. Glancing back, he saw a subdued, traumatized woman in
the throes of misery. Celia’s cousin had been a loyal friend, one
Seth had depended on many years before. Cursing low, he turned to
go back and kneel beside her. “This should never have happened.
Christ!” Her teeth chattering as she tried in vain to stop the
tremors racking her body. Vague and disoriented, she hadn’t
recovered her equilibrium completely, he mused and he was swearing
at her. Seth cursed again at his own stupidity.

“
What are you doing?” she
asked shakily.

Seth glanced back at the small pile of
wood he’d managed to stack for her. “Gonna build you a fire. Take
off those wet clothes.”

“
I will not!”

The retort came from a very feminine
proprietary bank of right and wrong. “You’re coming around,” he
told her with a half grin. “Temper’s good. It’ll get your blood
flowing again.”

“
You’ve got some nerve
telling me to remove my clothes.”

Seth turned on his haunches and
couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “Well, darlin’, seeing as how
you have very few on and they’re dripping wet, I thought you
wouldn’t mind an attempt at getting warm.” His command must have
caught her by surprise and, as her mind cleared, Celia gasped and
shot back, using defiance as a shield.

“
And just how do you propose
I do that?” Celia queried haughtily.

Agitated, fired up at having to take a
man’s life and now aggravated at having to deal with a woman’s
sense of proper made him want to curse at the moon appearing in the
east above the tree line. “Look, all I meant was I would build you
a fire and get some dry clothes for you. That’s all!” Seth wiped at
the air between them. Shoving up, he cursed low and glared back in
her direction. He couldn’t much blame her for her suspicions. After
all, she’d almost been raped. She had a right to be defensive, but
not at the risk of dying from the cold and wet.

Seth stalked back to the pile of limbs
and wood he’d managed to arrange in a stack for the
fire.

She eyed him warily as she tugged
harder on the blanket.

The look she sent him had “Go to hell”
emblazoned all over it. Anger made a person’s blood move. “That’s
more like it. I could always piss you off in a heartbeat.” His grin
was lopsided as he took in her reaction once more. “Suit yourself,
but if you don’t, I’m gonna have to come over there and undress
you. I’m just saying you have a choice right now.” Shrugging, he
went back to his fire building and pretended to dismiss her. From
under his Stetson, he observed her. She’d been through hell and
didn’t need his threats, just his help, he mused. A long ago memory
flashed in his mind’s eye of the same such threat he’d used in
getting her naked one cool spring evening all those years ago. Did
she remember as well the first time they’d made love by the
creek?

Blinking, Celia sent a futile gaze to
the creek and the myriad of clothing and bags lay strewn about or
floated in the shallow water of the creek. Seth’s gaze followed
hers and he realized her attackers had seen to it the creek looked
like wash day at an all girl’s school. She didn’t own a dry stitch
of clothing at the moment and darkness was falling. “Here, I’ll
help you.”

“
No!” Her eyes grew big with
the suggestion. “I can manage.” Turning her back on him, Celia held
the blanket with one hand while she undid buttons with the
other.

Cursing himself for a fool, Seth
watched her undress behind the blanket’s protection. He remembered
all too well, what she looked like in the altogether. “Throw them
here. I’ll stake them out to dry,” he said as he managed to tamp
down the urge building inside him.