Each Time We Love (30 page)

Jason looked thoughtful when she finished speaking, and a
curious gleam appeared in his eyes, as he glanced at Adam. "Why did you
take her with you when you escaped? Wouldn't it have been simpler to
leave her behind?"

Adam's mouth thinned. The look he sent Savanna was baffled and
hostile. "Let's just say that she irritated the hell out of me and I
felt that it was time that someone taught her a lesson!"

That seemed to satisfy Jason, although there was an odd quirk
at the corners of his mouth as he turned back to Savanna. The quirk
faded as he gazed at her and a frown marred his broad forehead.
Davalos's
daughter!
Good God, but it was hard to comprehend!

Jason had not thought of Davalos in years, but the enmity and
hatred he felt for the man who had once been his friend was unabated,
and all too clearly he could remember that terrible dawn when he had
held his wife in his arms and watched as she had lost the baby she had
carried; had watched the ground darken with her blood; had watched so
helplessly and feared that she would die—and for it all, he had Davalos
to thank! It was only later, when it was apparent that Catherine would
live, that he had been further shattered to learn that during her
terrible ordeal after Davalos had kidnapped her from Terre du Coeur,
Davalos had also brutally raped her. There were some things that a man
never forgot or forgave, and the murder of his unborn child and the
rape of his wife certainly ranked high among them! Time might have
dulled the pain and horror, but the scars were still there, deep and
ugly in his heart, and Jason could not help the wave of antagonism that
swept over him as he stared at the daughter of the man who had
inflicted so much suffering on him and his family. His feelings were
totally unfair, even he would admit that, but although he could admit
that Savanna was an unusual and intriguing young woman, the fact that
her father had been Bias Davalos made her as appealing to him as a
twelve-foot timber rattlesnake! And there was the further damning fact
that she had taken part in the abduction of Adam and had been, it would
appear, as equally driven to find that lost Aztec gold as her father!

A touch on his arm startled him and he glanced over at Blood
Drinker. Blood Drinker's expression was filled with understanding as he
stared into Jason's eyes. For Jason's ears alone, Blood Drinker said
softly, "It is hard, my brother, but do not condemn her for the sins of
her father.
She
had nothing to do with those
events that caused us such pain so many years ago! She was a mere
infant when Davalos killed Nolan and stole the golden armband and began
the terrible chain of events that linked us all together. We took our
vengeance on Davalos—there is no need to punish her for what she cannot
help."

Jason took a deep breath. A faint smile curved his mouth. "As
always, my friend, you are right, but it will not be easy for me to
look at her and not remember what her father did to us."

Blood Drinker nodded, the long black braids swaying slightly
on his powerful chest. "But you will have to overcome it… there is Adam
to consider now."

Jason grimaced, well aware of what Blood Drinker alluded to.
That his harum-scarum half brother was deeply attracted to Savanna had
not escaped him, and it created problems that he would rather not have
faced. Why in hell, Jason wondered angrily as his gaze wandered between
Adam and Savanna, couldn't Adam have chosen to lose his heart to
someone other than the daughter of Bias Davalos? Good God! Catherine
was going to be devastated when she learned of Adam's unfortunate
infatuation, and for that alone, Jason was already wishing that he had
never laid eyes on Savanna O'Rourke!

While Jason and Blood Drinker had been speaking quietly to
each other, Bodene had been busy concocting breakfast for all of them.
Having found a slab of smoked bacon amongst the supplies that Adam had
pilfered from the Spanish, Bodene had sliced the entire hunk since it
would not keep long and tossed it into a pan, and very soon the
mouth-watering scent of frying bacon was wafting through the camp. It
was eventually served with the ubiquitous corn-meal mush, but no one
seemed to mind—the food disappearing shortly after it was dished out.

Conversation was coolly polite at the beginning of the meal,
everyone apparently deciding privately that breakfast should be eaten
in relative tranquility. Gradually the atmosphere lightened and soon
Jason was skillfully asking questions about the cousins— how they came
to be together and where they had lived as children. Expertly he
gathered general information about them and their lives. Savanna and
Bodene were careful of what they said, but Jason and the others
deducted more than enough to get a clear picture of the wretchedness of
their early lives— unknowingly, the cousins revealed more by what they
didn't
say than by what they did say. It was only after their stomachs were
full and the clutter from breakfast had been cleaned and repacked that
Jason settled back against a scrubby oak tree and began to talk about
his own relationship with Davalos.

"My grandfather's plantation, Beauvais, adjoins Campo de
Verde, did you know that?" Jason asked quietly as he looked at Savanna.

They were all scattered about the camp in various positions of
relaxation, except for Blood Drinker, who stood half hidden in the
thicket of trees behind Jason, his black eyes missing nothing as he
scanned the horizon near and far. Savanna and Bodene were sitting side
by side on the ground to the left of Jason, their backs resting against
a fallen log; Adam was lounging comfortably directly across from his
half brother, his broad shoulders, like Jason's, propped comfortably
against the trunk of a tree. All of them, except Blood Drinker, were
enjoying one last cup of coffee, and while most of the initial
hostility had been banished, there was still an air of constraint about
the group.

Glancing up from her deep contemplation of the dark liquid in
her cup, Savanna met Jason's gaze and shook her red-gold head. "No, I
didn't. I knew some old man lived next door, but that's all."

At her reference to "some old man," a faint smile crossed
Jason's face. "Armand, my grandfather," he said lightly, "will not be
pleased to be called an
old
man! He celebrated
his eighty-third birthday this past February and still exerts a vast
charm for the ladies!"

Savanna shrugged. "Perhaps—but I have never met him, although
it's possible that my mother has been introduced to him."

"I doubt it," Bodene interjected dryly. "I'm afraid you'll
find that this branch of O'Rourkes doesn't move in such exalted
circles."

Jason didn't argue the point. Taking a swallow of his coffee,
he said slowly, "Because of the location of my grandfather's plantation
and the fact that I spent most of my youth with him, it was natural
that I became extremely intimate with his neighbor's son— Bias Davalos.
We were close in age and in those days were consumed with many of the
same pursuits." Jason smiled wryly. "Mostly horses, women and gaming.
Our friendship might have continued unabated except for the fact that
in the late 1790s, the indigo crop failed and the Davalos fortune was
wiped out." Jason looked grim. "Bias took it hard and he was bitterly
resentful that in a matter of months he had gone from being the heir to
a large fortune to having to work for a basic living. The last of the
ready cash of the family had been spent in procuring him his rank in
the Spanish army." Jason sighed. "While another man would have gone on
and put the past behind him, Bias couldn't seem to—he blamed everyone
for his sudden reversal of fortune and was particularly bitter against
me and my family. We escaped the indigo crisis because we had switched
to the growing of sugarcane a few years previously." Jason sighed
again, staring blindly off into space. "It was a difficult time for
him, and I'm afraid that while I sympathized with him in the beginning,
after a while I grew angry and irritated at his constant complaints
about his financial predicament. Gradually we grew apart—a little
because Bias could no longer afford the pursuits that were still
available to me, but mostly because of his deep bitterness and
resentment at the blow fate had dealt him. He became sullen and
unpleasant and began to chase after quick, often unlawful schemes to
regain the family's lost fortune."

Jason was silent for a long time, his thoughts dwelling
painfully on those events of long ago. Eventually he shook himself and
said softly, "I had another friend, Philip Nolan. Nolan was my hero and
my mentor, and Blood Drinker and I had many adventures with him. He was
older and perhaps not any wiser than we, but he certainly seemed a font
of wisdom to me—I loved Nolan."

Again Jason stared off into the distance, and it was obvious
to Savanna that this conversation was exceedingly painful to him in
spite of the fact that he was speaking of events that were decades old.
Jason took another long swallow of his coffee and then in his
compelling voice he effortlessly wove a spell around the others,
telling of that fateful trip to trade with the Comanches and of the
hidden Aztec treasure they had accidentally found. In detail he
described the twin gold-and-emerald armbands that they had discovered
on the grisly remains of the last victim of the Aztecs' priests, the
same armbands that he and Nolan had carried away with them when they
had left the hidden valley and the treasure. Rolling up his sleeve, he
showed them the gold-and-emerald band that still adorned his own arm,
and Savanna stared at it mesmerized until Jason abruptly pulled down
his sleeve and began to speak once more.

Still half dazed by all that she had heard, Savanna couldn't
help interrupting. Her eyes fixed on Jason, she asked huskily, "Why did
you leave the treasure? Haven't you ever tried to go back for it?"

Jason smiled faintly. "We had only the horses we rode, and
with a pack of Comanches intent upon lifting our scalps searching for
us, I'm afraid that taking any treasure with us, beyond the armbands,
was out of the question. As for returning for it…" He glanced across to
Blood Drinker.

A brooding expression on his darkly chiseled features, Blood
Drinker said slowly, "It was an evil place, not a place that I or my
blood brother wanted to find again. And we had no need of the gold.
Jason has always had a great fortune—what would he have done with more?
My family is wealthy even by the white man's standards and my wants are
simple. The gold of the Aztecs had no usefulness to me."

Intently Savanna stared at Blood Drinker. "But
could
you find it again?"

Very slowly, Blood Drinker nodded. "If I wished," he replied
distantly.

His own curiosity evident, Bodene asked, "Do you think that
Nolan returned to it?"

Jason shrugged. "I think he may have planned to." He glanced
at Savanna. "Unfortunately, he met up with your father."

There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment and then Jason
continued his tale, his anguish clearly revealed when he spoke of Nolan
being led away in chains and shackles by Davalos, never to be seen
again.

The very fact that Nolan had disappeared while in Davalos's
custody was damning, but Savanna knew that her father had indeed killed
Jason's friend; she had Jeremy's story of Davalos's dying words to
shatter whatever doubts she might have wished to harbor about her
father. Her mouth twisted bitterly. What a wonderful legacy Davalos had
left her!

But the story became even more horrifying and ugly as slowly,
haltingly, Jason spoke of his wife, Catherine, and what had happened
when Davalos, still intent upon finding the Aztec gold, had stumbled
across her and taken her captive. Blood Drinker and Adam knew the
terrible tale, and their faces were stony when Jason finally reached
the point of Catherine's escape after suffering Davalos's brutal rape
and the subsequent loss of the child she had been carrying.

There was utter silence in the camp when Jason stopped
speaking and the atmosphere was dark and full of remembered pain.
Savanna's tender heart bled for Jason and Catherine, and knowing what
her father had done to them, she could
almost
forgive Adam's treatment of her. Certainly she never doubted that she
had finally heard the truth—not some fanciful tale concocted by Micajah
to sway her to his side. Ashamed and horrified that she had ever
allowed herself to be part of the repugnant scheme that Micajah had
proposed, she stared miserably at the bottom of her mug, wishing that
there was something she could do or say that would make even the
smallest amend for her actions. As for what her father had done…

Tiredly Savanna realized that there was nothing that she could
say to excuse or explain either her own rash actions or her father's
far more brutal ones, and, her face revealing none of her inner
torment, she bravely met Jason's cool gaze. Her chin lifted slightly at
the condemning expression in his eyes. "It would seem that the Davalos
family has sinned against you one more time," she said gravely.

Jason nodded slowly. "It would appear that way."

His tone made Savanna writhe with guilt and she felt compelled
to add something in her defense. "I have no
real
excuse… except that I believed totally in what I was doing—I believed
that I had
right
and justice on my side—I
believed
that I was avenging my father's death and that I had a moral right to
the gold."

Remembering Catherine's distraught face at Terre du Coeur when
he and Blood Drinker had left to search for the missing Adam, and his
own fear that he would never see his half brother alive again, Jason
appeared unmoved by her words. He merely snorted and said, "For your
sake, I hope that a judge will look kindly on that feeble excuse. As
for myself, the sooner I can turn you over to the authorities and wash
my hands of you, the better I will feel!"