The Loner (16 page)

But when his hand found the pool of hot, wet invitation between her thighs, he knelt and entered her, carefully, slowly, then clasped her to him and taught her to move in the ancient rhythm of a man and a woman while the creek chattered over the rocks beside them and the night birds called. Until the sweet earth moved beneath them and they left it to fly into the night sky to ride the bursting stars.

Until Cathleen tore her lips from his so she could cry out his name.

 

Cat woke, blinked at the dawning sun, and immediately squeezed her eyes shut again. She
curled up into a ball and grabbed for the blanket that Black Fox's ruthless hand was peeling off her.

“Get away from here,” she mumbled, “that's mine.”

“I've tried everything else but a bucket of cold water,” he said brusquely. “We've got to get going, Cathleen.”

She held on as hard as she could but then she had to add her other hand and finally she had to open her eyes, sit up and prop her feet against his to get enough purchase to hang on.

“It's too early in the morning for games,” she said.

She shook her hair back and turned her face up so she could look up at him.

His dark gaze met hers and held it.

They both went utterly still. The heat in his eyes made her weak.

It made her remember everything they had done last night.

And it made her wonder. It was desire, yes, but there was something else mixed with it—a large part was his usual stubborn determination, part of it she couldn't read, and part was regret.

“As a matter of habit, I don't usually play games,” he said flatly.

She kept on searching his hot dark eyes, trying to gauge exactly what he meant. His sensual mouth was a hard line and his jaw was set.

“I know that,” she said quietly. “Neither do I.”

Her lips felt nearly too worn and bruised from his kisses for her to be able to talk. Remembering the taste of him, reliving the feel of his mouth on hers, made her long for it again.

“I owe you an apology for last night…” he said.

She interrupted, narrowing her eyes at him dangerously. “I wish just once you could kiss me without apologizing for it,” she said. “If you'll recall, Black Fox, I asked for it…”

“You didn't know what you were asking for. You're too young…”

She broke in again. “And I may never live to be old,” she said. “But no matter how long I have, I'll never forget making love with you and I'll never regret one moment of last night. I
know
you didn't intend it as a game.”

He startled, then gave a quick, involuntary nod, as if just realizing that that was the truth, which he didn't particularly want to acknowledge.

“I didn't,” he said, almost formally. “And I hope it'll prove true that you have no regrets. Now put on your clothes.”

He turned his back without another word and went to the horses.

Cat reached for her clothes, threw on her shirt without buttoning it, jammed her legs into her jeans, her feet into her boots and scrambled to stand. She felt as hollow inside as if she'd waked to find him gone.

“I'll saddle my own horse,” she said, more sharply than she'd intended. “Leave him. I'll be back in a minute.”

The whole time she refreshed herself and washed in the cold water of the creek and finished dressing and tried to bring some order to her hair, her heart felt so heavy it weighted her arms like lead. She needed to feel close to Black Fox—to
be
close to him, physically
and
emotionally—and that realization scared her more than Tassel Glass had ever done.

Sitting there looking up at him in the pale light of the dawn, she had been weak as a child with the longing for more. More of his kisses, of his holding her, of his skin against hers, and, most of all, more of him inside of her and the two of them moving as one. The power of him, the fire of him had awakened every inch of her body and now she'd never be without this wanting for him.

She knew that as surely as she knew what she'd told him was true: she would never regret one instant of last night and she would remember every one of them always. She would always want the feeling of safety she'd had when she buried her face in his chest and held on around his neck as if she'd been running to get to him for all of her life.

That was the only time since she'd been an outlaw that she had been able to give up all the trouble that ruled her. Now she had to go back to
thinking about vengeance and the law and danger and being alone.

Nobody had cared a whit about her since her mother had died. Nobody had touched her since then.

Except for Black Fox.

But, with him, she felt the old yearning for comfort and love mixed with something even stronger and more powerful. It was almost more than she could carry around inside her.

Black Fox had set a fire to burning in her—heart, body, and soul—that no other man could ever have done. That was the one other thing that she knew to be true.

 

They rode right up the middle of the road, headed north, past Possum's place and then away from it at a soft jogging pace. In the campground, the freight wagon still stood, now surrounded by the horses of Becker's gang. They grazed peacefully on their stake ropes while nothing else moved in the long, narrow meadow. Under a big oak tree at the south end of it, several bedrolls lay scattered around a low campfire gleaming orange in the low mist of dawn.

When Cat and Black Fox were well past the place, he broke the silence between them.

“Looks like everybody's got a lot of moonshine to sleep off,” he said, and sped up their pace to a long, fast trot. “I thought Becker was knocking
them back pretty good for a man in the middle of making a plan.”

Cathleen grasped at the topic like a drowning woman, in spite of—or because of—the disappointment slicing through her. She should've already told him what she'd overheard from Becker instead of waiting for him to speak.

Instead of hoping he'd want to talk about last night again.

Hoping that he'd give her one word to show that their lovemaking was something that he, too, would never forget and that he felt something in his heart about it besides worry that she would have regrets.

All she needed to hear, one more time, was that making love with her had not been a game with him. She wanted to know what it had meant to him.

Yet that very hope proved that she was losing her mind and losing it fast. What kind of future could they ever have, even if they managed to prove that Becker killed Deputy Turner and left her mark on the tree? Black Fox Vann was the best of the Cherokee Lighthorse. She was a thieving outlaw, as he had reminded her more than once.

Besides which, she was still going to kill Tassel Glass. Becker wouldn't have to worry about him getting away from the ambush alive.

“You were listening to them on the porch?” she
asked. “When I came running out of there, I looked for you.”

She sounded scared all of a sudden, as fear filled her all over again.

Forcing her voice to be steadier, she said again, “I looked for you. I wondered where you were.”

He sent her a sharp glance. Up to now, he'd not only been silent but he'd rarely been looking at her.

Which was for the best. Every time she looked at him all she wanted was to lean into her stirrup, reach over and touch him.

For one heartstopping moment he rode his horse closer to hers and shifted in the saddle. She thought he was going to reach for her but he dropped his hand against his long saddle muscles that she could clearly see through the thin jeans covering his thigh.

She wanted to lay her hand beside his and feel those muscles against her palm, to feel his primal power.

Desire flooded through her limbs and made them weak.

She wanted to lie in his arms again and feel him, all of him, skin to skin.

His dark eyes burned into hers.

“I'd hate it if you felt I made a sorry partner right then,” he said. “But I saw Becker and his men come out the front door and I thought you'd
not know where they were, or if you did, you'd have no way of hearing what they said.”

“It was pure luck,” she admitted. “I accidentally leaned back against the outside wall and I could hear them talking.”

He kept looking at her. Nobody had ever, ever looked at her like that. Not in that utterly sensuous way that heated her blood like a flame.

“I wasn't too scared,” she said reassuringly. “I knew you were around there somewhere.”

“Good,” he said, and he did sound relieved.

But she could still see the shadow of worry in his eyes, too, as he turned away. She didn't want that. She needed him to look at her, to make her feel that he was
with
her.

“I knew everything was all right,” she said, and he did meet her gaze again.

Everything wasn't all right now, though. It never would be again unless she could feel his body against hers. She tried not to, but she let her gaze drift down to his mouth and linger there.

Suddenly she couldn't speak. For a minute it seemed that he couldn't, either, and a sense of her own power flooded through her. The hope he'd say something personal came alive again.

“Then you know they're planning to ambush a shipment of whiskey meant for Glass,” he said.

The disappointment stabbed her again, too. But at least he kept on looking at her, and although his
face told her nothing, she knew—without a doubt—that he wanted to touch her, too.

After all, hadn't their feelings for each other been so powerful that they hadn't even mentioned the fact that Becker existed up until now? Not for hours and hours, not all night long, despite the fact that their real partnership was to prove her innocence. That fact was what she must remember.

Dear Lord, her very
life
was at stake. She had better get her mind on that.

“Yes, I heard them say that,” she said, flogging her brain into action, “and I'm thinking they were talking about Limestone Gap.”

He gave her an approving nod.

“From that description, it has to be,” he said, “and that's where I'm going to set up an ambush.”

“To shoot them or arrest them?” she asked.

“That's always the outlaw's decision,” he said. “I can't know ahead of time which a man will choose because ninety percent of the time he doesn't know either.”

“Do you think Tassel Glass will be there?” she asked.

“My guess is that he will be,” Black Fox said. “This shipment has to be a lot of whiskey, maybe more than usually comes into the Nation at one time, or Becker wouldn't be having a wagon built and setting up a daylight confrontation. He's a
coward at heart and he knows Glass has more men than he does.”

“But Becker will have surprise on his side,” she said.

“Right. And surprise is a powerful friend.”

“We'll have surprise on our side, too,” she said. “But Black Fox, won't we still have to have some help?”

“That's where we're headed now,” he said. “I've got to find somebody I can trust to send to Fort Smith for some federal marshals. I hope we can arrest Becker and Glass and both their gangs.”

Her heart beat faster. Somehow she had to get Glass first. Rotting in the Fort Smith jail would be far too good an end for him. Besides, he might get out someday.

Her heart began to race, along with her mind. She couldn't do anything before the ambush, though, could she? Black Fox probably wouldn't let her out of his sight but even if he did, she didn't want to ruin the ambush. Becker was the only one who could clear her name for the Turner killing.

She had to be cleared. She wanted everyone in the Nation, especially Black Fox, to know without a doubt that she did not shoot a man in the back. Glass she would kill legally.

“Black Fox, how can we make Becker confess to killing Donald Turner?” she asked.

“It'll help a great deal in your trial if some of Parker's other federal deputies can see your mark on the ambush and Becker's men putting it there,” he said. “But you're right. We'll really need a confession to seal the deal.”

Your trial.

Those words chilled her to the bone. The way he said them made them even worse. His tone assumed that she would have a trial, no matter what.

In that brief instant, he turned into a stranger. A lawman stranger who lumped her right in with the same ilk as Glass and Becker.

She fought down her hurt to stay where he could never see it.

“Who will you trust to go to Fort Smith?” she asked. “And what will we be doing while he's gone?”

“If word gets out to
anyone
, this will never work,” he said. “I need Willie to go.”

“But he's hurt.”

“Maybe it was nothing but a flesh wound.”

“We'll have to find out if that girl took him home,” she said.

“Yes, and you'll have to stay at the rendezvous I choose while I do that,” he said. “We can't take a chance on you being seen around Sequoyah after the way we left there.”

“You can trust me, Black Fox,” she said, feeling
like the worst of all liars. “I want my name cleared.”

And I also want to spy on Glass.

She couldn't call him out again, though. Not with no backup at all, since he wouldn't fight fair.

So that meant the ambush had to happen for her to get a shot at him.

But mostly the ambush had to take place to prove that Becker was using her sign.

“I know,” he said absently. “I think, counting whichever Lighthorse I can find and whether we have time to bring some in from Fort Smith, six or seven lawmen will be all I can gather. That'll have to do.”

“If we find Willie, he'll help,” she said, “and counting me and you, that'll be nine or ten.”

He gave her such a sharp, slanting glance that she felt she'd been cut with a knife.