Native Wolf (5 page)

It wasn’t like she was going to forgive him for kidnapping her. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to understand why he meant to hang onto her a little while longer.

So he dealt with the problem in his usual way—with silence. He didn’t untie her for fear she’d try to escape and hurt herself. He didn’t meet her eyes, knowing the innocent confusion he'd see there would only frustrate him. And he gave up trying to talk to her. He needed to focus instead on figuring out just where they were going.

He supposed he was lucky the horse hadn’t moseyed back to the Parker Ranch while he dozed. The beast probably would have gone by the main road, whinnying at the gate to announce their arrival.

There was no question in his mind that he had to return Mrs. Parker to Paradise as soon as possible, then hightail it back to Hupa with his brother, even if he had to drag Drew from between some woman's thighs. What he needed was a discreet back entrance to the town that would allow him to slip in and out without attracting attention. But since he was in unfamiliar territory, he’d have to rely on his native instincts to help him read the land and find that back door.

In the distance to the southwest, a small range of buttes rose up in distinctive humps from the flat grasslands. The Konkow called the buttes Histum Yani, the Creator’s sweathouse. Drew and he had kept them on their right shoulder on the journey here.

He squinted toward the foothills where the sun was rising. According to his father, just below the ridge upon which the town perched, a deep canyon cut through the earth, creating a valley. Long ago, his father’s sister Towani had lived in that valley, before her husband Noa had taken her away to his home on the island of Hawaii. Chase remembered his father saying that a forked creek wound through the canyon, and caves pitted the steep stone walls.

If he followed the creek upstream, it had to eventually rise to its source, somewhere above Paradise. On horseback, the journey shouldn’t take more than a day or two, and once there, he could make his way back down and enter the town from the uphill side. No one would expect him to circle back into the mountains and come from that direction, especially since his tracks so far had led in the opposite direction, toward the wide, fertile grasslands and civilization.

To elude his trackers, he’d have to move quickly. He was in open prairie at the moment, completely vulnerable. He needed to get out of sight, and he needed a place to hole up for the night. He wondered how far the caves were. Maybe if he rode swiftly, he could make it there by nightfall.

First, however, he needed to relieve himself of the excess whiskey he’d had last night.

He was halfway to his feet when he felt the woman's wide-eyed gaze on him.

Hell.

He couldn’t just drop his drawers in front of her. He obviously hadn’t worked out the details of this brilliant kidnapping plan. But then he hadn’t imagined his victim would be a lady.

And now that he had her, he was troubled by the fact that she was so...real. Things would be a hell of a lot easier if she were flat and lifeless, like the portrait hanging in Parker's mansion. Instead, her big green eyes were clear and perceptive, filled with wariness and intelligence and courage. It was unnerving.

He silently cursed his quandary. He’d do his best to take Mrs. Parker’s sensibilities into consideration, but he wasn’t about to leave her unguarded to go find a tree.

So he compromised. Tugging her along on the rope, he found a waist-high clump of buckbrush to use as a screen between them, turned his back, and used his free hand to unbutton his trousers.

Claire felt her cheeks go hot with embarrassment. Lord, had the savage no decency? How could he do...that...right in front of her? It was uncivilized. Thoroughly disgusting. Utterly vile.

And yet a darker thought taunted her, nibbling at her brain like a mean little mouse gnawing at the underside of a horse trough. What was she going to do when she faced the same urges? Fortunately, she was too edgy to relieve herself just now, and when the half-breed whipped toward her, buttoning up belatedly enough to give her an unexpected glimpse of bronze flesh and black curls, all such urges fled.

She squeezed her offended eyes shut, trying to erase the image that now seemed branded upon her brain, and didn't move until she felt a tug on the rope circling her waist. She took one blind step, stubbing her toe on a rock, and sniffed sharply against the pain.

She shot her captor a glare full of blame. His mouth worked, as if he were simultaneously displeased and disgraced. Then he spoke his first civil words to her. "We’ve got a ways to go. I'm going to put you on the horse."

She swallowed hard, caught off-guard by the quality of his voice—soft, deep, and full of breath, like the rare autumn breezes that rustled the pines. The fact that he spoke flawless English gave her hope.

Perhaps she could reason with the half-breed after all. He must know he couldn't ransom damaged goods. If she could get him to remove her gag, maybe she could strike a bargain with him.

But he wouldn’t even meet her eyes. Frowning as he towered over her, he spanned her waist with his huge hands, lifted her onto Thunder's back as effortlessly as if she were made of feathers, and then mounted up behind her.

She kept her fists primly closed, painfully aware that the particular part of his anatomy she’d just glimpsed was only inches from her bound hands.

Claire wondered if the man realized where he was headed. She knew from the position of the Sutter Buttes that they were traveling roughly north. They couldn’t be more than ten or twelve miles from the Parker Ranch.

The morning wore on, and they crossed the sparsely-treed plain toward a low ridge of hills. Claire's impending need began to make itself known as the dilemma she'd anticipated earlier slowly blossomed into a full-bloomed necessity. Her struggles didn’t go unnoticed. Her captor grunted at her in disapproval when she squirmed against him. A second twitch elicited a "hold still" from him. When she twisted for the third time, he dismounted, perplexed, to scowl up at her.

Her trouble must have been written on her face. He quickly snatched her from Thunder's back, deposited her on the ground, and nudged her toward a stand of buckbrush.

He never let go of the tether, but he at least had the decency to turn his back. Silently cursing her inconvenient anatomy and the fact that her hands were bound, Claire did the best she could under the circumstances.

Afterward, physically relieved and emotionally mortified, Claire refused to look into the man's face. As he lifted her back onto the horse, she stared fixedly at the shirt button in the middle of his chest.

"Next time,” he mumbled, “say something."

She glared down at him from atop the horse with all the rage she could muster. How in blazes did he expect her to say anything when she was gagged?

The man let his guard drop momentarily to mount, and for one mad instant, Claire imagined she might ride off without her abductor and escape across the countryside. Impulsively, she punched her bare heels hard into the horse's flanks.

Thunder reared, but didn't budge from the spot. By the time the stallion's hooves hit the ground, the man had swung up and steadied the startled beast.

"And don’t kick the horse,” he growled.

Claire was incensed. How dared this stranger tell her what she could and couldn’t do? Thunder was her father's horse. Besides, she hadn't kicked him. She'd only...nudged him. She suddenly wished the half-breed were in swinging range of her foot. She'd show him what a kick was.

But she didn't have time to even turn and glower at him. He reached across, making a swift and startling adjustment to her seat, drawing one of her knees over Thunder's neck to let it dangle down the other flank, leaving her straddling the stallion in a most unladylike fashion and bringing a stunned flush to her cheeks.

All at once, at the half-breed’s urging, Thunder plunged forward. As they began barreling along at a reckless pace that left the wind whistling past her ears, Claire was suddenly grateful to have her knees free to grasp on for dear life.

The steed coursed wildly across the sod, his dull hoofbeats matching the rapid pumping of her heart. Though tempted to squeeze her eyes shut in terror, she dared not even blink for fear of tumbling to the ground. The man bent over her, folding her forward with his brutish chest until she saw the grasslands before them only in intermittent glimpses between the eager bobs of the stallion's head.

The man's enormous arms enclosed her while he snagged Thunder's mane, and she felt the tension in his thighs as they gripped the horse's flexing muscles behind her. Horse and man breathed as one, sucking in gulps of air and huffing them out with each long stride. Her captor’s warm breath blew like a stirring wind across her ear, exciting her in ways that were almost as terrifying as the ride.

When they slowed to breach a grove of oaks, Thunder whinnied and shivered, apparently delighted to have stretched his legs in a headlong run. Claire, too, felt a secret thrill, as if she'd done something forbidden.

Of course it was forbidden. Her father wouldn't have allowed her to sit astride like a man. He was always after her to behave more like a lady. And he would have tanned the half-breed’s hide if he knew his prize stallion had been ridden so hard.

Where was he taking her anyway? She wished she could ask him. Not that he’d give her an answer. He seemed to be a man of few words, most of them vile.

They rode on in silence, weaving through the oaks, galloping across open country, while the sun climbed higher and higher in the sky.

By midday, they’d passed through a half-dozen of the rolling knolls that swelled the plains below Paradise. Claire was hungry and thirsty, and with each mile, her dread increased. What did the man want with her? The farther they traveled, the less chance she had of being found.

As the sun began its westward descent, she came to a decision. There was little hope of reasoning with the savage. She couldn’t rely on her father’s rescue. And dime novel hero Daniel Boone was nowhere in sight.

Soon she was going to have to take matters into her own hands.

Chase glanced up at the sun’s position and then studied the terrain ahead. In another hour, they’d reach the foothills, where the land began to surge up from the valley floor—a herald of the steep, majestic ridges to come. Then he would head northeast, toward the mountains.

So far he’d been lucky. He’d managed to stay clear of the main road, sailing hastily across open seas of grass and finding temporary harbor in the concealing oak groves.

Still he left a trail. There was no doubt about that. He was moving too fast to cover his passage. A good tracker would know by now which way he was headed. But half a day’s advantage and Chase’s estimation of what lay ahead might give him an edge.

And then what? Chase wiped the back of his hand across his damp forehead and tried not to think about it. When they were safe, when they reached the cliffs, then he’d decide exactly what to do about his unwilling captive with the pretty green eyes.

His stomach gurgled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since the night before. He wondered when
she’d
last eaten. A woman that scrawny probably had to eat pretty often just to keep from blowing away.

By the time another hour passed, the weary sun had tucked itself beneath a blanket of storm clouds forming in the west, and his blacksmith’s appetite had grown to enormous proportions.

Chase had never truly gone hungry before. He’d grown up in plenty. The hunting skills of his Konkow father, the profits his white mother earned from her paintings, and the simple abundance of the land had provided him with all he could ever want. Now his stomach grumbled like an old bear.

He supposed he should gather what food he could before sunset. Fortunately, it was the time of
dunghit
, spring, when shoots and roots and bulbs were ample. They might not be the tinned oysters the white lady was accustomed to, but they’d nourish her well enough.

He guided the horse toward a shady spot afforded by a dozen sycamores, where a tiny spring fed the marshy ground. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until he heard the sound of the taunting trickle. With the gag in her mouth, poor Mrs. Parker was probably drier than powdered pinesap.

He should have stopped to let her drink a long while back...just like he should have foreseen she’d have to answer nature’s call. But damn it all, he was used to taking care of horses, not women.

He hardly knew what to do with women. He wasn’t like his brother Drew, who, with only a wink and a smile, could have the most formidable lady eating out of his hand. Around females, Chase felt like a big, clumsy wolf.

He dismounted, and she stiffened suddenly. The clever lady wasn’t as weak and subdued as she pretended to be. He could see some rash, desperate plan brewing in her eyes. Her body quivered like a doe’s, ready to bolt, and her nostrils flared with rapid breath. He snagged the rope circling her waist before she could do anything foolish and pierced her wild eyes with his own in warning.