Only in My Arms (27 page)

She drew back and brushed herself off. "Yes, well I can see a little too clearly now."

After a brief, quizzical, over-the-shoulder glance, Ryder started walking, this time shaking his head in bemusement.

The pace he set was not hurried and Mary was not tired when he stopped. He studied the ground as she leaned against a rock and took off her shoes. Fine grains of sand and pebbles no bigger than the heads of pins were shaken out. She stared at the debris with no little astonishment. She would have sworn she was carrying Gibraltar in both shoes. Mary curled her toes, wiggling them to restore circulation. "I'm not tired," she announced. "You don't have to rest on my account."

Ryder was hunkered beside a grouping of stones. "I'm not resting. I'm reading." He picked up the stones, smoothed the ground underneath to remove their depression, and then placed them carefully among other rocks, making certain the sun-dried side was still facing up. "You sound almost eager," he said, glancing at her. "You'll be happy to know we're nearly there."

Mary stopped wiggling her toes. "But you said a day's walk."

Ryder shrugged. "They've moved again."

She frowned, her brow furrowed.

"It's all right," he said. "They're still expecting us."

Mary eased herself away from the rock and straightened. "What do you mean, 'They've moved'? And who's expecting us?" Militancy was back in her stance and her eyes were issuing a challenge.

Ryder ignored both. "Put your shoes on. There are a few miles left, and most of it's downhill." As he turned to go he thought he might get one of the shoes squarely in the middle of his back. He was grateful for Mary's restraint. He wondered what conclusions she had drawn about their destination. Whatever they had been, she was discovering them wrong. Her confusion was quite real, however. It forced Ryder to think about how much longer he could count on her cooperation. He was certain now that she had been plotting her escape.

It wasn't as surprising as it was disappointing.

* * *

Jay Mac stiffened slightly as the guard approached. Moira rose to her feet at the Chiricahua's gesture but stood protectively beside her husband.

"It is time to go," the guard said. "They are waiting." He withdrew a knife from the soft buckskin folds of his boot-like moccasin. His flat expression didn't change when he saw that Jay Mac did not flinch, but he was impressed. "You will follow me." He cut the bonds on Jay Mac's wrists, then the ones on his ankles.

Jay Mac got awkwardly to his feet. His palms and soles tingled with restored circulation, but he gave little notice to the discomfort. His arms went immediately around Moira. He could feel her heart beating madly as he pressed her close to his chest. Believing they had lived their hearts and that nothing had been left unspoken, they exchanged no words. Jay Mac broke the embrace reluctantly. It was easy to read the guard's expression now. It was one of repugnance. "It appears they don't approve of public displays of affection," Jay Mac muttered.

Moira smiled, resting her head momentarily on her husband's shoulder. "Imagine how he'd react if you kissed me properly. We'd probably be able to escape."

The guard was not amused. "This way," he said.

Jay Mac squeezed Moira's hand. "At least they want us together," he said quietly.

* * *

"What is it?" asked Mary. She was looking at the garments hanging from the end of Ryder's extended arm as if they might bite her. The truth was, they looked lovely and were treated to her suspicious stare because of that. The leather had been bleached until it was pale as eggshell and had been worked over and over until it was soft as butter. The beadwork in the fringe along the neck, arms, and hem was all turquoise and silver. "I mean," she corrected herself, "I know what it is, but what am I supposed to do with it?"

"Put it on."

Mary didn't reach for it. Instead her hands went behind her back and she actually retreated a step. "Oh, I couldn't," she said, shaking her head. "It must belong to someone. It looks very valuable. You should put it back where you found it."

"You're not usually so slow to the mark," he said calmly. "Is it that you really don't want to see?"

She merely stared at him, bewildered.

He explained patiently. "It does belong to someone. You. I found it because it was left for me to find."

Her hands came from around her back. "For me?"

He nodded. "I thought you might like a change of clothes."

Now Mary reached for the buckskin shirt and skirt eagerly, holding them up in front of her. "Beautiful," she whispered, awed. The weighted fringe on both pieces swayed and jangled as the beads rubbed together. The leather was soft to the touch, and she raised a sleeve to her cheek. "They look as if they will fit me."

Ryder simply shook his head. She was determined not to see any part of the picture that wasn't painted especially for her. "Of course they will fit. They were
made
for you."

That brought her head up. She stared at Ryder wonderingly. "You?"

"No, not by me."

Mary raised the fringe along the neckline gingerly. The tiny beads sifted through her fingers, cool and clear. "Like droplets of water," she said softly.

"Yes," he said. Some visions did not have to be explained. He saw it in her eyes now, the knowledge that these garments had not been an undertaking of a few days, but of months, and that they had been fashioned after a likeness he held clearly in his mind's eye. "Put it on, Mary."

It would be as if she were in the pool again, she thought. She would wear this garment as if it were the water and she were naked save for its cloak. And she would remember how he had looked at her when he thought of her only as a woman and how he had held her, comforted her, when she thought a woman was all she wanted to be. She had fallen asleep in his arms, exhausted by the despair that clutched her heart, yet strangely rested from his sweet succor. When she had awakened he was gone. She had never expected to see him again but she knew she wouldn't forget him.

This garment was proof that he had not forgotten her.

"I'll show you where you can wash," he said. Ryder led her through a copse of pines to a narrow mountain stream. It was only a few inches deep but the water was clear and cool. He knelt and washed his own face and hands. "When you're done we'll follow this stream to the bottom, and then it will be done."

Mary opened her mouth to ask a question, but Ryder was striding away. She watched him disappear into the shadows of the pines. It occurred to her he was giving her a chance to run. It also occurred that he was extending his trust. On the heels of that thought she considered that perhaps he was merely taking her compliance for granted, that in his arrogance he thought her cooperation was assured.

She gazed after him, staring at the spot where he had vanished from view, holding the fringed, pale, butter yellow skirt and shirt in front of her. It became clear that her decision would not be made because of what he wanted, but because of what she wanted. Carefully laying the gift aside, Mary knelt beside the shallow stream and folded her hands. It was not water that she raised to her lips but prayer.

Mary was not the only one who changed clothes. Ryder shed the last vestiges of the military and replaced it with garments that had been left for him. A long-sleeved buckskin shirt replaced the flannel one, and he added the breechcloth by looping the long strip of buckskin over his belt in the front, then drawing the long end between his legs and tucking it under his belt in the back. He pulled on the moccasins, tugging them up to his knees, then gathered the discarded clothes and bundled them.

For the first time in his life Ryder could find no peace in waiting. On this occasion anticipation was not a welcome companion. If Mary ran he would find her and bring her back. She could never get far enough away that he couldn't get her quickly, but he had no taste for the task. He did not want it to be against her will, yet he wanted it. Marriage was the condition he had placed upon their union. Mary did not seem to expect it or even particularly want it. She hadn't tried to bargain her body for a ring and a commitment, nor had she tried to seduce him like Anna Leigh Hamilton to appease curiosity.

The stillness that surrounded him now was an agony. He strained for some sound that would indicate Mary's presence by the stream. The pounding of his own heart left him deaf to sounds he could have heard in a windstorm. Unable to tolerate it another moment, Ryder shot to his feet and quickly retraced his path to the water.

Mary turned when she heard him, her smile more uncertain than eager. The remote, guarded expression on Ryder's face did not inspire confidence, and the clothes he wore startled her. She was reminded again of the predatory nature of man and of this man in particular. Mary wasn't certain she wanted to be in his sights now. Her eyes dropped away from his, and she fingered the fringe at her neck in order to have something to do with her hands.

He had steeled himself to accept that she would be gone, and now the expression was engraved on his features. It wasn't until her eyes fell away that he felt himself relax and the frost lift from his lightly colored eyes.

The pale leather outfit clung softly to her slender frame. When she moved, the beads glanced off one another, shifting and sparkling like a curtain of raindrops. The sun was just setting, waves of oranges and reds, like a tide of color in her hair, skimming the surface of each strand so its own rich hue was reflected more brilliantly. The fringe at the hem of her skirt almost touched her feet, and it was movement there that caught Ryder's eye. Barefoot, Mary was curling and uncurling her toes in a nervous gesture that kept the fringe swinging in time.

"A moment," he said. He was gone and then he was back, producing a pair of moccasins that were as soft as the shirt and decorated with the same beads of turquoise and silver. "Here," he said, handing them to her. "I should have given them to you before. I wasn't thinking." It wasn't quite true. He
had
been thinking, but only of how she would look in wedding raiment that was like shimmering water. In the end his vision had not done the truth justice.

Mary accepted the moccasins but looked at them doubtfully.

"I think they're going to be too big." The toe of the buckskin boots would extend well past her own toes, and the tips of the moccasins turned upward. She glanced at the moccasins Ryder was wearing. The toes of his had the same distinctive upward turn.

"They are as they are meant to be," he said.

Which was to say that when Mary put them on, the fit would be perfect. The rawhide soles protected her feet as her own shoes hadn't been able to do. "Thank you, Ryder."

It seemed to him that the use of his name was deliberate, as if she understood it was not the way of the Apache to use a given name carelessly, that one's name was invoked when there was something of importance to be expressed. Of course, she couldn't know that, but Ryder found he wanted to believe it anyway. He picked up her discarded clothes and bundled them with his. He held out his free hand. "This way, Mary."

As always, when he said her name in that peculiar way of his, as though attaching some singular importance to it, Mary found herself wanting to honor his wish. She slipped her hand in his and walked at his side along the edge of the winding stream.

Their descent was gradual and slow. The pines dwindled in size but never disappeared, and Mary realized their elevation was still high above the desert floor. It wasn't until the stream widened and pines circled a small clearing that Ryder stopped. He released Mary's hand and tossed the bundle toward the trees.

"What are we doing?" she asked. It did not seem odd to her that she was talking no more loudly than the wind as it whispered in the boughs. "And what is that?" She pointed to the large woven basket in the center of the clearing. It was filled with water and had the dimensions of a wooden washtub. Was she expected to do their laundry? "Why are we stopping here?"

"In a moment." He knelt in front of her and removed her moccasins while she rested a hand on his shoulder to keep her balance. When he was done he removed his own.

Mary wanted to giggle, but something in Ryder's manner sobered her. He was behaving solemnly, deliberately. He took her hand again and this time led her to the basket of water. He stepped in first and then lifted her. She caught her breath as much from his hands on her waist as from the first icy dip. "What are we doing?" she asked again. "What is this place?"

Ryder didn't answer. His fingers caught hers in a firm clasp.

Mary tugged, but she wasn't released. Her skin prickled with a mixture of cold and trepidation. "I don't think I want to—"

"Shh. They're coming."

At Ryder's whispered urging, Mary was silent. She followed the line of his vision half expecting to see spirits arise from the grouping of trees to the left of them. What came out of the wooded area was no spirit, but flesh and blood. The man wore clothing similar to Ryder's, except his breechcloth and shirt were of cloth, not buckskin. His hair was thick, darker even than Ryder's, parted in the middle and held back by a wide red bandana. At the side it was so long it nearly reached his elbows. The sun had been this man's companion throughout his life. His skin had the same reddish-brown tint of a polished chestnut and deep lines were carved into the corners of his eyes and mouth. His manner was solemn and proud, and he acknowledged Ryder and Mary with the merest nod of his head.