Warrior's Embrace (59 page)

“Cole?”

Tears started in her eyes as she looked at
her son.

“Clint ...stop him.”

“Let him go, Mother.”

o0o

The sun had left the sky and the first stars
were beginning to show. In the distance a lone wolf howled, and the
nighthawk answered. Cole listened to the night music and waited for
peace to invade his soul. But it didn’t come. Peace had eluded him
for many moons now.

Behind him the kitchen windows glowed. Anna
would still be sitting at the table. Thinking of the tears in her
eyes, he wavered, then resolutely he started to the barn.

Cold winds bit his skin. He probably should
go back to get a coat, but the journey he had to take would not be
postponed, not even for ten minutes.

His mare whinnied when he entered the barn.
They hadn’t ridden together in a long time, not since the night
he’d carried his children into the mountains.

Filled with purpose, he felt strength and
power surge through him. He put bridle and blanket on his mare then
vaulted onto her back. Nothing could take away his riding skills,
not even alcohol.

Outside, the sky had darkened and the stars
brightened. Lights were on inside Cole’s house, and through the
window he saw his wife. Anna. Love of his life. Keeper of his
heart. Guardian of his soul.

Impatient, his mare whinnied. Cole dug his
heels into her flanks and raced down the road with the night wind
singing in his ears.

He had no soul.

That was his mission. To find his soul.

There was no doubt that Deborah Lightfoot was
a beautiful woman. Her hair hung down her back like a bolt of black
silk and her skin shone like polished copper. She was gentle,
kindhearted, and intelligent. All the qualities a man would want in
a woman.

Or a wife.

The vague dissatisfaction Eagle felt turned
to full-blown unhappiness as he gazed across the room. Kate Malone
was dancing in the arms of another man.

“I haven’t had this much fun in years,”
Deborah said, and Eagle leaned down to catch her voice above the
music. With Kate he hadn’t had to bend so far. Her head had fit
exactly on his shoulder.

“Do you love dancing?” Foolish question.
She’d just admitted as much.

“Oh, yes. When I was a little girl I dreamed
about being a ballerina. Of course, that was before I decided to be
a cowboy.”

“A cowgirl?”

“No. I wanted to be a cowboy. I’d be in
pictures, of course, and for once I’d be on the winning side.”

Deborah’s laughter was infectious. Over the
top of her head he saw Kate laugh at something Mark Grant had said.
He pulled Deborah closer, determined to make the relationship
work.

“Let’s dance under the stars,” he said,
leading her toward the open French doors. On the patio he wouldn’t
have to see Kate and Mark Grant pressed together like a matching
set of bookends.

“Sounds like a wonderfully romantic idea.”
Deborah smiled up at him. “I’m a sucker for romance, you know.”

The trust in her eyes was absolute. He’d
wrestle with his conscience tomorrow.

o0o

Mark Grant saw Kate’s eyes darken when Eagle
left the room, felt the tension that came into her shoulders and
back, heard her soft intake of breath. All the grand plans he’d
made suddenly came crashing down around his ears.

What a fool he’d been. Whistling while he
dressed for the dance, thinking she’d finally noticed him.
Picturing the two of them cuddled cheek to cheek on the dance floor
then later, tangled together in his bed. Or hers. Heck, they might
not even make it home. They might end up in the backseat of his
car.

Now, standing on the dance floor with his
dreams vanished like dandelions in the wind, he found a shining
nobility he hadn’t known he had. Obviously it had been meant for
some ancient knight in King Arthur’s court and had missed its mark
by several hundred years, but heck, he was smart. He’d grab
whatever lifeline came his way.

“You know, Kate, I’m mighty glad you asked me
to this shindig, but I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

She went still, watching his face.

“I mean ...I’m as human as the next man. I’m
not saying I wouldn’t like to take you to for a romp in my
bed.”

“I believe I was the one making that
move.”

“Yeah, well, you nearly succeeded.” He
grinned to take the sting out of his words. “But a man has his
reputation to think of. Too many one-night stands and they won’t
let me wear white at the wedding.”

“You’re leaving, aren’t you, Mark?”

“Going to Africa is leaving, Kate. Going to
Ada just means I won’t be in your house. This business with the
children is nearly over. I can do what needs to be done from Ada.”
He chucked her under the chin. “But heck, kid, if you get hungry
for my cooking, haul ass over here and let me rustle up some grub.
You might even talk me into a movie.”

“Do you know how wonderful you are?” Kate
cupped his face.

“Grandma told me that once.”

Kate kissed him softly on the cheek. He held
her close for a moment then stood back, pasting a false, silly grin
on his face.

“Thank you, Mark. For everything.”

He put his arm around her waist and led her
from the dance floor, even pausing in the doorway so she could take
one last look at Eagle, silhouetted against the French doors,
dancing under the stars with Deborah.

Noble to the bitter end, Mark thought. He
ought to get some kind of humanitarian of the year award.

o0o

Melissa Colbert saw Kate leave. Standing at
the punch bowl, surrounded by people who weren’t important to her,
she gave a secret smile. The bitch had been so busy rubbing herself
all over that man she was with, she hadn’t even noticed the visitor
from Boston. Which was fine with Melissa. The element of surprise
always had its advantages.

She wondered if the man Kate was seducing
this time belonged to somebody else.

“We’re glad you’re here to continue Dr.
Colbert’s altruistic work.” The speaker was Black something or
other. She’d already forgotten their names, but it didn’t matter.
“Everybody around here loved Clayton.”

At the mention of his name, a dark fog began
to fall over Melissa, descending first over her chest so that she
felt smothered. Fighting panic, she searched the room, looking for
something, anything, to hold back the darkness.

And that’s when she saw him. He stood apart
from the crowd, his handsome face dark and brooding, his stance
relaxed and yet arrogant.

“Excuse me, please,” she said.

The man assessed her boldly as she
approached, his eyes hooded and wary. “Hello, foxy lady.”

“Hello. I’m Melissa Sayers Colbert.”

“A woman with three names has to be
important.”

“I am.”

“I’ve been watching you across the room.”

“And I’ve been watching you.”

“Do you like what you see?”

“I’ll have to reserve judgment on that.”
Melissa held out her hand, and he took it. She felt the heat of him
all the way to her toes. Oh, she liked what she saw, liked it very
much indeed.

“Where are we going, Miss Foxy Lady with
Three Names?”

“Do you care?”

“No. As long as I get what I want.”

Her long white limousine was waiting for them
outside the door. She gave her chauffeur directions then settled
back against the white leather cushions.

A beautiful copper-colored hand pushed her
skirt aside.

“My name is Hal Lightfoot,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter, dear boy.”

He was young, so young. And so very
necessary.

o0o

The first snows had already fallen in the
mountains and lay glittering like sugar over the tops of the trees
and the roof of the hut. Its pristine beauty disguised the
treachery of the mountain peaks and the jagged rocks that lay like
sharks in the depths of the canyons.

Traveling in the darkness, a lesser man than
Cole might have lost his life. But Cole knew the land, knew how to
survive its treacheries. Neither the bitter winds nor the freshly
falling snow nor the distant screaming of the screech owl deterred
him. The mountains called to him in voices of beauty and the stars
bent low to give him light.

His horse stepped into a hole drifted over
with snow, but Cole knew he wouldn’t go down. Nothing could stop
his quest.

The dark winds cried with the voices of the
coyote and the bobcat, but onward Cole traveled, winding upward
toward the shroud of mists that covered the tops of the mountain.
The Great Spirit caught time in a dark velvet net and held it
captive for the duration of Cole’s journey. Day and night ceased.
Hunger and pain no longer existed. There was nothing except the
shrouded peaks and the need. The urgent need.

Suddenly out of the mists came a vision, an
ancient Spirit Talker wrapped in the buffalo robes. His bear-claw
necklace gleamed in the moonlight.

“I knew you would come,” he said, holding out
his hand. It was warm and soothing. “I’ve prepared for you.”

Smells of smoke mingled with the fragrances
of medicinal herbs inside the small hut. Cole sat upon a bright red
blanket while the old shaman covered him with the skin of a
buffalo. He drew the tattered edges close and inhaled the scent of
mold.

“A few more suns and I will vanish from these
mountains just as the council fires and the curling smoke from our
lodge fires have vanished,” the medicine man said. “Gone are the
bark canoes and the thunder of buffalo and the songs of our women.”
A heady, pungent smell filled the air as the shaman puffed on his
pipe.

“I have had a vision,” he added. “In dreams
filled with bending grasses and clear waters, the white buffalo
came to me.”

He passed the pipe to Cole, who drew the
mind-freeing drug deep into his lungs. Closing his eyes, he heard
the thunder of the hooves as the Great Divine Presence showed
himself once more, emerging from the darkness as white as the snow
itself.

“I, too, see the buffalo.”

“It is good. It is a sign.” They passed the
pipe between them once more, in perfect understanding. At peace at
last, Cole lay upon his blanket and slept.

o0o

The beauty of being maintenance engineer was
that he had access to the building even with the plant shut down,
and nobody was ever surprised to see him with his mops and buckets.
Outside the door marked MANAGER, Hal mopped the same spot over and
over. In the old, thin-walled building, every word Lacey Wainwright
uttered was as clear as if it were being broadcast over a
microphone.

“Dammit all to hell, Bruce, we’ve got to stop
Eagle Mingo.”

“We can’t stop Eagle Mingo. He’s the
governor, and in Chickasaw territory that translates as the law of
the land.”

Bruce Graden was second in command, a skinny,
whining man who looked as if he couldn’t run a public toilet, let
alone a whole plant. What Wainwright needed was a real man,
somebody with guts.

“He’s getting too close.” Wainwright smacked
his fist against his desk. The blow reverberated in the hallway.
“We can’t let him find out that we deliberately dumped toxic waste
into the creek. Have you got your story straight?”

“Yes ...but what would it cost to dispose of
it correctly? I mean, it seems to me ...with the lives of children
at stake and all—”

“Bullshit! Hog-tie me with a bunch of
regulations, and I might as well kiss all my profit good-bye. We’ve
got a gold mine out here, and I’m not going to let anybody destroy
that. Nobody. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” Bruce Graden headed for the
door.

Bent over his mop, Hal did some serious
scrubbing until Bruce was out of sight. Then he leaned his mop
against the wall and slicked back his hair.

The rattlesnake hunt was over. It was time to
move in for the kill.

Lacey Wainwright didn’t look too happy to see
him. That would all change in about five minutes.

“Mr. Wainwright, I’m Hal Lightfoot.”

“I know who you are. What I don’t know is
what in the hell you want.”

“What I want can wait. What I know is more
important.” He sat in the chair without asking. Lacey Wainwright
was not the kind of man who appreciated timidity.

Wainwright bit off the end of a big cigar,
then lit up and sat back, blowing smoke. “And what is it you think
you know?”

“I don’t think; I know. These walls have
ears, and I’ve heard everything.” He winked. “We both know how
Witch Creek got polluted, don’t we?”

Lacey’s jaw clamped over his cigar as he
sized up Hal.

“And you want money. Is that it?”

“No. I want a promotion. Executive assistant
sounds good to me. I can lie and cheat and steal with a straight
face and a clear conscience, and as far as I’m concerned, Eagle
Mingo is a man who hasn’t met his match.”

Wainwright blew smoke rings in his direction.
Hal didn’t flinch.

“You’ve got balls. I like that.”

Melissa Sayers Colbert had liked them too.
But that was a bit of information Hal intended to keep to himself.
At least for the time being.

“Do we have a deal?” he asked.

The chair creaked as Wainwright stood up.
Taking another cigar from the teakwood box on his table, he passed
it to Hal.

“Deal,” he said.

o0o

Bruce Graden was not surprised to find the
pink slip in his box. Wainwright didn’t even do him the courtesy of
firing him in person.

He cleaned out his desk, careful not to leave
even a scrap of paper that would benefit his successor. The
janitor, of all people. News like that traveled fast.

It took him until five o’clock to get his
belongings neatly boxed and stored in the trunk of his car. Then,
as if he were finishing an ordinary day, he punched out and drove
home.

His telephone would be safe, at least for a
while. But one phone call was all he needed. He looked up the
number and dialed. It was answered on the first ring.