Runaway (43 page)

“Well, I’m not a Seminole woman—and I’m not risking my ears. Robert is a friend to me as well. He’s not …”

“Not what?” Naomi asked.

“Not Jarrett,” Tara said softly, and Naomi smiled. After a minute Tara smiled as well, then told her sister-in-law, “You speak English very well.”

She shrugged. “Because I speak it constantly.”

Tara shook her head. “But I have been listening to your language for days now.”

“Three days. I’ve been around English all of my life; James does not even have a ‘first’ language; he learned his Muskogee and his English together as a child, and even now, sometimes, with me, he puts the two together. Jarrett does the same thing. If you wish, in time, you will learn. You already know a few words.”

Tara arched a brow.

“Mico,” Naomi said.

“Well, I’ve heard that enough. It means
chief
.”

Naomi picked up an orange.

Tara shook her head. “I don’t remember.”

“Yalaha,”
Naomi said.

“Chief
and
orange!
That will get me far!”

Naomi laughed. “The rest of it will be as easy in time.” She motioned out the door. “They are coming,” she said, and turned to the center of the cabin where Mary was sewing patiently upon a shirt. She started to repeat her words, but Mary was nodding. “My sons are coming,” she said.

The evening was exceptionally pleasant for Tara. Mary was determined to tell Tara tales from Jarrett’s past, about his initiation as a warrior, and how he had painted his body blue, drunk the black drink, and taken on his adult name, White Tiger. James, translating, would change a story here and there, making Tara laugh. Naomi would correct him. Jarrett would sigh and correct them all with great patience.

“You should have seen the time he caught the cottonmouth!” James said.

“A poisonous snake?”

James nodded. “I was barely toddling. Jarrett shouldn’t have been playing with the snake, but it had crawled up onshore with us, and he was going to be the great warrior, looking out for the rest of us.”

Jarrett groaned. “James, this story—”

“Well, he caught the snake. But then he was afraid to let it go. He sat on the bank of the river and waited forever, and finally Father came and rescued him.”

“I must have held it for five hours,” Jarrett admitted.

“Two,” Mary said, smiling shyly, two fingers up.

“Felt like five!”

Soon after, they returned to their own cabin. Tara, very sleepy and contented, lay down on the furs. “I still don’t understand rank here. James will not fight the white man. Osceola had Charley Emathla killed for saying that he would go west, yet he and James—and you?—seem willing enough to leave one another alone.”

Jarrett, shrugging out of his shirt, didn’t reply at first.

Tara sat up again, frowning. “Jarrett, Osceola was here the day I arrived. I haven’t seen him since. Where is he?”

Jarrett shrugged. “This isn’t his home. He is distantly related to Mary, and so to James, but he lives with his own family.”

Tara hesitated a moment. “He came here for warriors, didn’t he? To attack white settlements.”

“How do I know, Tara!” he said impatiently.

“But you do know!” she accused him.

“Osceola is at war. He does not share his whereabouts with me under such circumstances.”

“But if he needed you, he’d find you.”

“And if I needed him, I’d find him!”

Tara lay down again, her back to him, her heart beating. A minute later he was stretched out beside her. She felt the warmth of his bare flesh, but kept her back stiffly to him.

She had been right. Osceola had come for more men to go on his raids with him. James and Jarrett McKenzie were living in a fool’s paradise, and they could not go on doing so forever.

She thought that he had forgotten her, or that he was aggravated enough with her to want nothing more to do with her that night. But she was wrong. In a moment she felt his arm pulling her close and tugging on her clothing. “What is this?” he demanded.

“A dress,” she said flatly.

“Amazing. But it doesn’t belong in bed.”

She let out a long, aggravated sigh. “Jarrett, you seem to think that—”

“I think that a dress does not belong in bed where we sleep, and that is all.”

She hesitated a moment, chewing on her bottom lip. Then she sat up and shed her clothing, drawing a fur warmly around her. He watched her with his ink-dark eyes, fingers laced behind his head.

“Satisfied?” she asked.

“Wrong question!” he told her, but when she lay at his side again, still stiff, he didn’t touch her.

And in the night she grew cold. She inched closer to him and wondered why it hurt that he seemed able to keep his distance so easily when she had discovered all too quickly that she didn’t like the distance at all.

Still, when she came close to him, he curved his body to hers, slipping an arm around her. She lay awake for a while, wondering again about the man she had married, and the wife he had buried. Naomi had said that Jarrett
seemed pleased enough with her. Yet she couldn’t help wondering anew if she was simply filling a physical void.

Or if he felt the difference in the woman he held through the night.

Since her mare had run home days ago, Tara seated herself on Charlemagne in front of Jarrett, and the huge horse did not seem to notice the added weight. She had hugged the children, Naomi, Mary—and even James—but it had surprised her to see the way that the others in the village had smiled and waved to her as well as to Jarrett. She had smiled and waved in return, and felt a strange surge within her heart. For a moment she wondered how Jarrett could stand the crossfire in which he stood. She prayed that he would stand fast through the bitter bloodshed.

They didn’t speak much as they headed out. Tara remained weary from the night before, and leaning against her husband’s chest, she found that she kept dozing. But late in the morning she awoke as he eased her up. Puzzled, she realized that they had stopped by a stream for water.

She bathed her face and drank deeply, shivering slightly, for the day had remained chill. She heard the noisy gulping of Charlemagne close by and rose, then noted that Jarrett had walked off a short distance and was staring into a copse. She came behind him quietly and looked past him.

A covered, hollowed-out tree lay there with a pole arranged above it like a spit. Clothing lay upon it, furs rested by it. Gourds and plates of rotting food were set by it; flies buzzed all around.

It was a burial ground, she realized. The hollowed-out tree looked exactly like a casket.

Jarrett didn’t take a step closer. “Little Wild One,” he said after a moment.

“A friend?” she inquired.

“Someone I knew. Once.”

“Perhaps he died of illness.”

“There lie his rifle and his spear, both ready for the spirit world,” he told her, pointing out the weapons that lay over the coffin itself. “He was killed in battle.”

She hesitated. “A warrior would rather die in battle than suffer through illness, wouldn’t he?”

Jarrett shrugged. “Perhaps.” He looked at her. “He was only about fifteen. A hard time to die. Come on. Let’s get on home.”

He lifted her back on Charlemagne. It wasn’t too much later that they came to the cypress forest where she had first found herself lost—and accosted by Osceola. In no time they were riding onto the lawn of Cimarron, and Tara was amazed to realize how happy she was to see the house again. When she had left, it had still seemed like Lisa’s house.

Lisa was no longer her enemy. It remained Lisa’s house, yet was hers now as well.

“There’s Jeeves. Anxious to have us home,” Jarrett commented. “He’ll be eager for a dinner meal.”

“I’m eager for a very hot bath,” Tara murmured.

“Then you shall have it,” Jarrett said, slipping from Charlemagne’s back first and reaching up his arms to her as members of the household quickly appeared, Peter running out to take care of Charlemagne, Jeeves hurrying forward with a snow-white smile cutting a clean swath across his handsome black face. “Welcome home, Mrs. McKenzie, welcome home! We missed you sorely.”

“Thank you, Jeeves,” Tara told him.

“She’d like a hot bath,” Jarrett said, shrugging with a smile to his main servant.

“Well, sir, I did imagine that she might, and since you had sent word when you’d be coming, I did take the liberty of arranging the tub. It rests in your room, sir, half filled with steaming water, while more hot water awaits in the kettles above the hearth.”

“Thank you, Jeeves,” Tara said, surprising him with a hug as she walked by him. Was such a thing done here? She didn’t really care. “Thank you.” She left them all behind, running up the back porch steps, bursting into the house.

She paused for a moment, swirling around the elegant breezeway, glad to have reached it again.

Home.

She took the steps two at a time, marveling at how the world had changed since she had been here last. Upstairs she burst into Jarrett’s room—their room—and found that the tub was indeed waiting, that extra water was simmering above the fire.

Yet, for a moment, she paused. She trembled, thinking that she was suddenly absurdly happy to be here. Perhaps Jarrett didn’t really love her, but perhaps, as Naomi said, he was pleased enough with her. Cimarron was beautiful. This room, even with its masculine feel, was warm and inviting. She had been so comfortable on the bed.

She had lain awake so many nights in it, thinking about him. Tormenting herself.

Perhaps in time …

Yet she clenched her hands into fists at her sides, wishing suddenly that there were no more secrets in her own life. If only the truth were out.

But had the truth been told, she might never have come here. And no matter how it burned within her heart, she still couldn’t chance any confessions to Jarrett.

She closed her eyes tightly for a moment. She had to
pray that she could eventually find out about William. And she had to believe that he was safe, much safer with her far, far away!

Her bath waited, a cloud of steam rising above it.

She stripped quickly, poured in the rest of the water, and sank into the tub. It had been scented with roses. A sweet-smelling soap awaited her and a lush fluffy towel lay across the rocker that sat by the tub. She swept up her hair and plunged in. Pure bliss. She sat there, feeling the delicious heat sink into her body. She laid her head back on the rim of the tub and closed her eyes. She had to forget her own past, put it behind her.

Far behind her.

She opened her eyes, frowning slightly. Then she saw that Jarrett had entered the room with his silent tread and now sat in the rocker by the tub, hands folded idly before him, watching her. A swift shaft of trembling danced its way through her spine. She knew that brooding, curious look in his eyes. Knew the tension in his bronzed, handsome features. Knew the sun-darkened hands and fingers that folded and unfolded now as he watched. Knew so much of him so well.

Loved so very much about him.

And now she also knew how he had learned to move so silently!

“You might have knocked,” she remonstrated softly.

He lifted his hands. “But I live here. It’s my room. And you’re my wife.”

It was quite an opening for an argument, but she wasn’t ready to give him one. She smiled slightly, her lashes falling over her eyes. “I didn’t really expect you to knock,” she admitted. “I know you too well.”

Too well, and too little still!

Yet it didn’t surprise her when he knelt by the side of the tub, leaning his arms upon it as his fingers played in
her water. “You know all my deep, dark secrets now,” he said, his tone casual.

“All of them?” she murmured.

“All of them. So I thought, perhaps, you might want to share a few of yours.”

The water seemed to cool. She felt as if clouds were falling over her eyes.

“I—I can’t!” she whispered.

“Tara …”

“Jarrett, I swear to you—”

“Why do you dream about William?”

“He is safe!” she murmured.

“Where?”

She shook her head vehemently. “He is safe while I’m far away.”

“Tara …”

“Please, I have sworn to you that I am innocent!”

“But of what?” he demanded, frustrated. “I still know nothing about you. In hours you can stitch together amazing creations; you tell me that you’ve had blisters before. I found you in a tavern that was all but a whorehouse, and yet you were as innocent as a newborn. Your manners are impeccable, and your speech is perfect. No one seems to be able to glean the slightest accent from it. I don’t know if you were born the greatest lady or a street urchin.”

“You said that it didn’t matter!” she whispered fervently.

“It doesn’t,” he said passionately. “We can’t forget that this is a new world, that we’ve fought a revolution to be free, and in that new world this is surely one of the wildest of wildernesses. What counts here is not birth, but spirit and courage, and those virtues are yours in abundance. But, Tara—”

She felt her lip trembling, felt herself grow colder and
colder. “Jarrett, you have promised me that you would ask no more questions!”