Each Time We Love (27 page)

In the excitement of his return, Savanna had momentarily
forgotten the uneasy sensations that she'd had earlier, and Adam was
too busy concentrating on getting them away from this area as quickly
as possible to sense the presence of the man so stealthily approaching
the pair of them. Savanna was standing fifteen feet away from Adam as
he completed his task, staring daggers into his broad back, when the
huge, dark shape exploded out of the underbrush and swung a thick club
at the back of Adam's head.

Savanna screamed and Adam was already spinning about when the
man struck. The stunning blow caught Adam on the temple and he crumpled
in a heap. Like a tigress defending her young, Savanna launched herself
at the attacker, only to come to a frozen standstill as the man turned
and she recognized him.

Incredulously she stared at features she knew as well as her
own.
"Bodene!"

"WELL,
WHO THE HELL ELSE DID YOU EXPECT?" HER cousin demanded
irascibly as he bent over and efficiently tied Adam's hands behind his
back.

Savanna laughed tremulously, still not quite capable of taking
in the astonishing fact that it was her immeasurably comforting cousin
who had struck Adam down. It was only when he stood up and regarded her
with that familiar mixture of affection and exasperation that she knew
it really was Bodene Sullivan there in front of her and not some mad
dream. Smiling and crying at the same time, she hurled herself into his
arms and, enveloped in his strong embrace, lost the iron control she
had kept over herself and let the too-long-held-back tears stream from
her eyes.

When the worst of the storm of weeping had passed, she firmly
brushed away the signs of her weakness and smiled, albeit shakily, up
at him. "Oh, Bodene! I don't think I've ever been so happy to see
anyone in my life than I am to see you right now!" she admitted.

"I
should hope so, my dear!" Bodene
retorted bluntly. "You've led me the devil's own chase, I can tell you!
Now, do you want to explain to me what's going on? I've been tracking
you for weeks and the only thing that has kept me going, besides
dwelling on the satisfaction it would give me to wring your neck, was
that I would find out what the hell happened to cause you to disappear
like that! Your mother has been frantic!"

Still smiling mistily up at him, she noted that he made no
reference to the fact that
he
had been equally
frantic. She sighed raggedly. "It's a very long story—one I'll tell you
once we're far away from here."

She sent a worried glance in Adam's direction and, dropping
down next to his still body, assured herself that he was only
unconscious. An anxious expression on her face, she muttered, "I wish
you hadn't hit him quite so hard. It's going to be difficult to get him
on a horse in his condition."

Bodene stared at her, thunderstruck. "Excuse me? Do I take
that statement to mean we're taking that blackguard with us?"

"We can't leave him here!" she exclaimed. "Anything could
happen to him!"

"Well, I should bloody well hope so!" Bodene burst out
explosively. "I don't know what has gone on, but it's obvious to me
that you didn't leave home with him willingly, nor have you stayed with
him because you wanted to be with him. And from the bit of conversation
I overheard before I knocked him out, it didn't sound as if your
relationship was particularly friendly!"

Savanna grimaced. "I know. It's all so complicated. But he
wasn't the one who kidnapped me—at least not in the beginning," she
admitted truthfully.
"That
was Micajah!"

Looking thoroughly bewildered, Bodene regarded her silently
for a long moment. Then he let his breath out in an exasperated sigh
and said, "I think you had better start at the beginning of this tale."

"I will, I promise, but first we had better get away from
here—he stole these horses and supplies from a small Spanish outpost
about a half mile from here. They'll be looking for us come daylight."

Bodene's chin jutted stubbornly and Savanna feared that he was
going to prove to be immovable, but after studying Savanna's strained
expression and then glancing consideringly at the man on the ground
beside her, he shrugged. "All right. We'll take him with us, but you
had better have a good story to convince me that I shouldn't have left
him lying here!"

Savanna nodded vigorously, and the next several moments were
spent in hurried activity as they swiftly took stock of the animals and
goods and tied Adam like a sack of grain over his saddle, which had
been placed on the back of a fresh horse. The worn-out mounts which
Adam and Savanna had been riding originally, they turned loose.
Bodene's horse and pack mule, which he had concealed some distance
away, showed signs of the long, hard trek they had just completed, but
were in good condition. Not fifteen minutes later, the cavalcade was on
its way through the moonlit darkness, Bodene leading his own mule and a
packhorse, Savanna leading Adam's horse and the other packhorse Adam
had stolen.

There wasn't a lot of conversation between them, for they both
were occupied with putting as much distance between themselves and the
Spanish outpost as possible, and though the moon greatly aided their
journey, it was no pleasure ride. Fortunately, they were crossing
territory they had traveled before and they made excellent progress,
galloping their mounts as fast as they dared.

They lost some time while Bodene tried to disguise their
trail, but eventually he gave that up—the passing of six animals was
difficult to obliterate even in daylight, and with only the glow of the
moon to help him, it was nearly impossible. Speed, he decided grimly,
was the only thing that was going to put them beyond the reach of the
Spanish! He kept the horses at a rigorous pace even after the sun had
risen, but he knew that they would have to stop by evening—Savanna's
pale features clearly defined how very near exhaustion she was, and he
cursed under his breath the man who had brought her to this state.
Glancing back at the bobbing form of the unconscious man, Bodene
promised himself fiercely that the fellow was going to learn to his
cost that it wasn't wise to meddle with Savanna! Bodene Sullivan was
going to teach him a lesson he'd never forget!

As the day progressed, Savanna kept throwing anxious looks
back at Adam's body, fearful that this punishing ride would harm him
further. If only he would stir, she thought for perhaps the hundredth
time since they had begun their mad dash away from probable pursuit.
Why doesn't he wake? Whenever Bodene pulled the horses to a halt for a
brief rest or for water, Savanna dismounted and checked on Adam, but by
late afternoon, when there still was no sign of his rousing, she was
acutely worried.

"Shouldn't he be waking by now?" she asked Bodene with a
distressed expression on her tired features.

Speculatively Bodene's gaze went from her face to the limp
body of the man on the horse. Savanna was sure damned concerned for
that fellow, he thought slowly, and she shouldn't be! He might not know
exactly
what had happened to her, but from his
observation before he had made his presence known, it had been apparent
they weren't friends! Yet she seemed genuinely anxious about the man.
What the hell had happened between the two of them?

Frowning, he asked out loud, "Why do you care? When I found
you, he'd left you chained like a slave in the middle of nowhere!" He
glanced again at the man. "Something happen between you two that I
should know about?"

Wearily, Savanna shook her head. She wasn't about to involve
someone else in her argument with Adam—if what lay between them could
be identified by such an innocuous term!

Unknowingly, her fingers caressed Adam's dark head and she
muttered, "I just don't want him to die, that's all!"

Bodene snorted and, walking over to Adam, made a rapid survey
of his body. "Breathing's normal and his color isn't bad," he finally
said. "He should wake up this evening sometime—with one hell of a
headache!"

They remounted and rode steadily eastward, Savanna so
exhausted that she simply trusted her horse to follow Bodene's and fell
into uneasy naps. It was only when she was in danger of falling off her
horse that she would jerk fully awake and for a while would try to
stave off the overpowering need for sleep, until the effort became too
much and she would doze off again.

Bodene had not been wrong about Adam's headache, but he had
miscalculated the time of his awakening. Not more than an hour after
the conversation between the cousins, Adam gradually became aware of
his situation. His head did indeed ache— atrociously so—and to find
himself roped to a saddle like a sack of grain, his head hanging down
on one side of the horse, his feet on the other, did not add to his
comfort! Sourly Adam decided that he was getting damn tired of being
hit in the head!

Beyond realizing that once again someone had knocked him out,
at first he was slightly disoriented, but with every jarring step the
horse took, memory came flooding back. The events of the previous night
were suddenly vibrantly clear to him, and it didn't take a genius to
figure out that someone—Micajah?— had struck him from behind and
trussed him up this way.

As much not to give away his recovery as not to increase the
pounding in his temples, Adam moved his head cautiously, looking around
as best his bonds permitted. He couldn't tell a great deal from his
position, but it appeared that Savanna was leading his horse as well as
one of the packhorses and that she was following someone else. Who?
Micajah? The thought was a chilling one, and almost gratefully, Adam
slid once more into unconsciousness. He woke several times more during
the rest of the day, each time staying awake longer and becoming more
and more alert. It soon became apparent, from the little conversation
he overheard between Savanna and the other man, that it hadn't been
Micajah who had given him the blow to the head. That information didn't
comfort him very much, because it was also obvious that whoever had
knocked him out was someone Savanna knew—which didn't bode well for him!

It was nearly dark when Bodene finally decided that they
should stop for the night. He chose a small tree-dotted bluff which
gave a clear view of the wide prairie they had just crossed and which
he hoped fervently would allow him to spot any pursuers in time to take
defensive action. A good-sized stream ran near the base of the bluff,
and the grass was long and sweet for the animals.

Savanna slid exhaustedly from her horse, and watching her
stiff movements as she tied her mount and began to unsaddle it, Bodene
said in a gruff voice, "Leave it, brat! I'll take care of it. You see
how our companion is doing and then just rest a while."

For once in her life, she was too worn out to argue. She sent
him a grateful smile and approached Adam's horse. Almost tenderly, her
hands cupped his face as she lifted his head to examine his features.
Finding herself being coolly studied by those hard blue eyes was a
shock and she gave a small, startled gasp.