Comanche Heart (29 page)

“I hope the sun shines upon you,” Hunter said.

Swift smiled through the sadness. “My sunshine’s up the street, Hunter. Take care of her for me, will you?”

“I always have.”

Swift tightened the saddle cinch. His good-byes to Hunter’s family had been said. The time had come to leave.

“Hunter . . .” Swift rested his hand on Diablo’s neck. “There are things about Amy you don’t know.”

Hunter’s blue eyes lifted and sharpened. “Yes?”

“I gave her my promise that I’d never tell you.”

“Amy has no secrets from us.”

“Yes . . . she does, Hunter. Terrible secrets.” Swift’s throat constricted. He had never willingly broken a promise in his life. “You said you’d built her a safe world, and that you’d done a bad thing. I’m asking you to let her hide here and dream her dreams, for as long as you can. Don’t let anything threaten that. For Amy, the world you’ve given her is her survival.”

Hunter’s face tightened. “What are these secrets?”

“I can’t tell you that. And don’t press her to tell you.” Swift led Diablo in a circle to turn the stallion toward the door. “Some things are best left buried.”

“Henry . . .” Hunter whispered the name, his eyes taking on a gleam of anger.

“Don’t press, Hunter.” Swift hesitated, gazing over his saddle at his friend. “I won’t betray her trust. She’s been betrayed enough to last her a lifetime. Just be there for her.”

Hunter looked sick. He closed his eyes, his throat working. “But the letters—everything was fine.”

Swift offered no explanation for that. Because of his promise to Amy, he couldn’t.

“I think I must go to Texas,” Hunter whispered.

Swift’s hands started to shake. “Jesus! You can’t do that. Don’t talk crazy, Hunter.”

Hunter met his gaze. “Where are
you
going?”

Swift averted his face. “I told you, wherever I light.”

“Maybe in Texas.”

“Who’s to say?”

“If you go there, you’ll never come back. You know that, and I know that. Does Amy know? That is the question.”

“What I do is no concern of hers.”

Hunter pushed up from the straw bale. “I will pack.”

Swift swore. “You’ll do no such thing. Loretta and your children need you here, and, damn it to hell, so does Amy.”

Hunter clenched his hands. “What did he do to her?”

“You don’t want to know, my friend.”

In a blur of movement Hunter came across the barn, grabbed Swift by the shirt, and threw him against the wall. For an instant Swift was so taken by surprise that he drew back his fist. Then he focused on Hunter’s rage-contorted face and forced his body to relax.

“What did he do to her?”

“I won’t fight you, Hunter.”

“You will tell me! She is part of my heart!”

“No. I promised her, and I won’t betray her. If you’re my friend, you won’t ask me to.”

“Why did she never tell me herself? Why?”

“Because she’s—” Swift pushed Hunter away, straightening his shirt with a shrug. Raking his hand through his hair, he paced, then turned. “Some things are mighty hard to talk about. She never told me, if that’s what’s eating you. I found out by digging and—” Swift threw up his hands. “She doesn’t want anyone to know. She’s hidden it from you and Loretta all these years. It’s not my place to say anything.”

“Yet you go to Texas?”

“I never said that.”

“Your eyes say it. You’re going to reclaim her honor. He raped her, didn’t he?”

Swift picked up his hat where it had fallen during their scuffle. Clamping it on his head, he led his horse from the barn. Hunter followed, rigid with anger. His gaze shifted from Swift to Amy’s little house at the other end of town.

“Don’t say anything to her,” Swift said. “Promise you won’t. It’d just about kill her if she found out you knew.”

“Why?”

Swift sighed, hesitating with one foot in the stirrup. “Shame, maybe.”

“Shame!” Hunter’s face drained of color. “Shame? It’s Henry’s shame, not hers! Never hers!”

“To our way of thinking. But Amy wasn’t raised like we were. Just let it go, Hunter. The wound’s healed over.”

“Healed? The man she loves is riding out of her life!”

Swift felt as though someone had plunged a knife into his stomach. “Whether or not she loves me is another thing entirely. She doesn’t trust anymore, and who can blame her? Bringing it all out—shaming her—won’t change how she’s come to feel.”

Swift swung into the saddle. Hunter grabbed the stallion’s bridle. “Swift, if you’re going, take her with you. Ride down there, throw her on the horse, tie her on, if you have to, and take her with you. Don’t leave her here to live the rest of her life with nightmares.”

“Hunter, I’m her nightmare.”

With that, Swift spurred his horse into a gallop. The horse’s hooves threw up dirt as it careened onto the street and leveled out in a run.

Chapter 14

AMY CLUTCHED THE WINDOWSILL, STARING through the steamed glass as Swift rode his black up the street. Tears filled her eyes, and she began to shake. He drew his horse to a walk as he passed her house. Her gaze shifted from the gun belt that rode his hips to the conchae on his black hat, then fell to the roll of black wool across the back of his saddle, the hated poncho.

A comanchero, a gunslinger, a killer. She forced herself to repeat the words in her mind, to remember who and what he was. But she could no longer find the fear she had once felt. He was just Swift, a curious blend of past and present, a hard, bitter man with a capacity for violence she couldn’t fathom. Yet he touched her with such gentleness.

He rode to the top of the hill and wheeled his horse to look back. She had the feeling he could see her at the window, but she didn’t drop the curtain or pull away. She couldn’t. She wanted to drink in the sight of him, memorize every detail, because she knew, deep in her heart, that once he disappeared she would never see him again.

A sob swelled in her throat. She willed him to ride off so the hurting would stop. But he just sat there on his horse, buffeted by the late October wind, staring at her house, as if he were waiting, giving her this one last chance.
Trust me,
he seemed to be saying.
Come out of the house, Amy. Run into my arms. Take a chance on me.

“I can’t, Swift,” she whispered to no one. “I can’t.”

Whirling from the window, Amy clamped a hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes closed. She wouldn’t watch. She’d pretend he had never come. She’d get on with her life. She wouldn’t wish for things she couldn’t have.

The world I belonged in is gone. You’re my last chance.
Rigid, she stood there, the seconds measured by her slamming pulse, each one an agony because she knew he might have left by now, that if she turned and looked, the hilltop would be empty.

As empty as her life.

 

Swift nudged Diablo into a trot, tightening his hands on the reins. The wind whipped against his jaw, cut through his shirt. He reached behind him for the poncho, hesitated, then jerked it free from the ties. It didn’t matter now if he wore it. It never would again. Giving the stallion free lead, he took off his hat to shove his head through the slit in the wool. The protective layer of clothing didn’t warm him. But then, the chill he felt went deeper than the flesh.

Taking up the reins again, he settled his gaze on the skyline, an endless expanse of trees and mountains.
A man with yesterdays on his horizon travels a great distance to nowhere.

Diablo snorted and pricked his ears. Swift listened, heard nothing. The stallion snorted again. Reining him to a walk, Swift twisted in the saddle to look back.
Wishful thinking
, he chided himself.
Just keep riding. Don’t torture yourself.
But he listened all the same. And then he heard it. A cry, carried on the wind, so faint he nearly missed it.

Then she appeared on the hilltop, gray skirts blowing, wisps of golden hair flying from her braid around her face. He focused, blinked, afraid he was imagining her.
Amy.
Gathering up her skirts, she came tearing down the rutted road at such a breakneck speed he feared she might lose her footing and fall.

About twenty feet away, she staggered to a stop. Tears streaked her face. Her eyes looked tortured, so blue against her pale skin they reached out and grabbed him. She clasped her hands over her waist, short of breath, sobbing.

“Swift . . .” She gasped and swallowed, struggling to speak. “Wait . . . until tomorrow. Please? Just one more day.”

His heart felt like a rag she was wringing out. “What difference will one more day make, Amy?”

Her face contorted, twisted. She cupped a shaking hand over her eyes. “Don’t go. Please don’t go.”

Swift swung off the horse. The poncho caught in the wind, the fringe whipping up and lashing his cheek. He should take it off; he knew how she hated it. But, as she said, a man couldn’t outrun his yesterdays, no matter how he tried.

“Amy, look at me.”

She dropped her hand, focused on him through shimmering tears, her mouth atremble. “Won’t you stay with me one more day?”

Swift let his gaze trail off to the trees, steeling himself against the plea in her voice. “Why, Amy? So we can go through this again tomorrow? It’s better this way, quick and clean.”

“You’ll never come back.” She took several steps toward him. “I don’t want you to leave.”

“For one more day?”

“I don’t want you to leave at all.”

He leveled a gaze on her. “Why? Say it, Amy.”

She closed her eyes and braced herself. “You know why, damn you! You know why!”

“That’s not good enough. I want the words.”

“Because . . . I love you!”

Swift’s stomach twisted. “Look at me when you say it. I’m no sketch on the mantel. I can’t go back and become the boy you knew. You have to take me the way I am now.
Look
at me.”

She slowly opened her eyes. Her gaze traveled from his concha-banded hat to the poncho, touching on his guns, settling on his silver spurs. Then, her face draining of all color, she looked directly into his eyes. She swayed slightly, as if the wind might carry her with it.

“I love you.”

The words carried no conviction. He regarded her, acutely aware that their future, if they even had one, depended totally upon her and what pitiful measure of courage she had left.

“If you really love me, Amy, then take those three steps I asked you to take that first night. But understand that if you do, your freedom’s gone. You call it owning, but I call it loving. And I want it all, your love, your life, your body. I won’t settle for less.”

She wrung her hands, staring at him. “T-today, you mean?”

It was painfully obvious that her attention had centered on only a part of what he had said. Swift clenched his teeth. As frightened of lovemaking as she was, he couldn’t allow her to hold part of herself away from him. They’d end up right back where they started. He knew now that the thought of anyone having power over her terrified her. She might never move beyond that unless he forced her to surrender to him. Only then could he prove her fears were groundless.

With supreme effort, he finally managed to speak. “Maybe today. Maybe right now, right here. That isn’t the question. You know it isn’t. What difference does when make, Amy, if you trust me, if you truly believe I love you? When you love someone, you care about their feelings. If you don’t believe, with all your heart, that I care about yours, then do us both a favor and go home.”

“I believe it.”

“Then you know what you have to do.” He held her gaze, hating himself but convinced he had no options. “It’s your choice. I gave you your freedom. If that’s what you want, take it and run. If it’s not, you’ve got three steps to take, and I can’t help you take them.”

She just stood there, as if her feet were pinned to the dirt. Swift waited. It was the longest wait of his life. And she still didn’t move.

Turning toward his horse, he said, “Good-bye, Amy.”

“No!” she cried.

Swift glanced back to see her running toward him. He barely had time to turn before she catapulted. He caught her, staggering under the impact of her weight. Then he tightened his arms around her. She trembled, clinging to him. Tears burned behind his eyelids. He bent his head, pressing his face into the sweet curve of her neck, reveling in the feel of her against him, all reservations gone. He had yearned for this, dreamed of it, but nothing compared to the reality of Amy in his arms.

“D-don’t leave me,” she cried. “Please, don’t, Swift. I’ll take the risks. I’ll change. I will, I truly will. If you’ll only give me a chance. Just one more?”

Freeing a hand, he pulled the folds of his poncho around her to protect her from the wind, then hugged her close again. She pressed nearer, if that was possible. Swift ached for her, wishing he could undo all that had been done. But he couldn’t.

“Oh, Amy, love, I don’t want you to change. I don’t care if you come to me afraid,” he whispered gruffly. “I don’t care if it takes us years to make things right between us when we make love. The only thing I care about is that you come to me freely.” He swallowed back a rush of fear, afraid to press her, yet knowing he must. “Say you’re mine, Amy. I want your betrothal promise. Not one from fifteen years ago, but now, from the bottom of your heart. Can you do that?”

The tension in her body told him what it cost her to say the words. “I’m yours. I’ll marry you. I—I promise.”

“And if I choose to make love to you right now, under one of those trees over there? Does the promise still hold?”

A shudder shook her. “Y-yes.”

Swift’s arms convulsed, tightening around her. In the back of his mind, a warning went off. She was delicately built. He might be hurting her. But, damn, he loved her so. To hear her say yes, even with trepidation, was such a joy he wanted to hug the breath right out of her, to meld their bodies into one, so he’d never have to fear losing her again. He struggled for control, forcing his arms to relax. Placing one hand on her hair, one on her back, he swayed with her in the wind, soothing her with his touch, receiving solace himself when the tension eased out of her and she relaxed against him.