needs a place to heal. Are you going to keep her lying on that dusty mat on the floor? She would be better off at my people’s village. At least there I could give her soft furs to cushion her and not have to-”
“Stop stinging me with that scorpion tongue, dammit,” Dominic said. “I’m taking her back to the hotel at Hell’s Bluff as soon as she’s able to travel. When will that be?”
“She will not be able to sit on a horse by herself, but if you could make her comfortable, she could leave tomorrow. It would be better than keeping her here. She is not accustomed to roughness.” Silver continued grudgingly, “Though I think she would suffer it without a complaint. Her spirit is stronger than her body.”
So Silver had discovered that as well. “She won’t have to suffer it. I’ll give her whatever she needs to make her well. Will you come with me, Silver? I don’t know what kind of reception she’s going to receive in Hell’s Bluff.” He smiled bitterly. “I made sure I burned all her bridges when I took her away. The good people of the town may be very cruel to her if we don’t protect her.”
“You… need me?”
“I need you.”
Silver quickly took pains to mask any sign of the pleasure she felt. “Of course you need me. How could you take care of her by yourself? You are only a man, and a white man at that. I will come and no one will be cruel to her.” Her smile was fierce. “More than once.” She turned away. “Now I will go for a walk and you will tell her she will not be alone when you take her back to town. Wipe the blood from your face. You must not frighten her.”
Dominic lifted his fingers to his lips and it came away with drops of blood. “Yes, ma’am.” He jerked the handkerchief out of his back pocket and dabbed at his split lip. “Anything else?”
“No, not at the moment.” She glanced back over her shoulder and smiled. Dominic inhaled sharply. At that moment she looked so much like Boyd, there could be no question of her parentage. Why couldn’t Da see the resemblance? Why did he deny the truth so stubbornly? “I’ll let you know if I wish anything else later. After all, white men have made good slaves for Apaches before this.”
He bowed slightly. “Yours to command.”
To his surprise a slight flush darkened her golden skin. “You needn’t mock me,” she said, her eyes blazing. “I know how you all feel.” She turned and walked away swiftly.
Dominic gazed after her, silently cursing Boyd and Da and himself. At that moment he had seen a glimpse of something hurt and vulnerable beneath the fierceness Silver wore about her like a cloak. In no logical way could he compare her to Elspeth, but for a fleeting instant she had reminded him of his little owl, struggling desperately to be brave against overwhelming odds.
His little owl, his Elspeth. How easily possessiveness crept into his thoughts when they concerned Elspeth. But he mustn’t think of her as belonging to him. He couldn’t let her become closer to him than she was already, any more than he could allow Patrick to come nearer. He had done enough to her without exposing her to more danger. Not that she would want to be close to him, he thought moodily. She would probably be on the stage and hightailing it out of Hell’s Bluff as soon as she could totter out of bed.
He drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders. It was time to face her. He had been dreading the confrontation since Patrick had told him she had regained consciousness, but he would put it off no longer.
Elspeth’s eyes were closed when he walked into the cabin, but they opened at once to gaze up at him with startled alertness. She had been expecting him, she had known he would come, and yet her breath seemed to stop when she saw him. He was unsmiling and his familiar grim expression made her suddenly remember what she had been trying to forget since the moment she had awakened to see Silver sitting beside her.
The hot color flew to her cheeks and she tried to sit up. The tan blanket slipped and she grabbed at it frantically, abruptly conscious that she was completely unclothed beneath it.
“Have you no sense?” Dominic was across the room in three strides and dropping to his knees at her side. “Lie down before you fall down. You can stop looking at me like I’m some sort of ogre. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“No?” she whispered. “You’ve changed your mind then? About ravishing me, I mean.”
A flicker of pain softened his expression. “I’ve changed my mind. I won’t ask you to forgive me, I know there’s no forgiveness possible. But for God’s sake, don’t be afraid of me. I won’t hurt you. All you have to do is concentrate on getting well.”
The tension flowed out of her and she relaxed slowly. She nestled her cheek on the suede of his jacket that still served as her pillow. “I thought you would change your mind once you had gotten over your anger with me. You didn’t really want to bed me. I knew that.”
“Did you? Clever of you.” He was acutely conscious of the vibrant textures of her. Her long hair was flowing silk against the rough black suede of his coat, and the flesh of her shoulders gleamed with the luminous transparency he remembered as if it had been carved into his memory with the blade of a tomahawk. Dear God, he was wanting her again. He hadn’t expected desire. He had felt nothing but aching regret and tenderness all the time he was caring for her, and yet now desire was upon him again, sharper and more alive than ever before. “I’m no threat to you. Patrick said I’d gone loco. I guess he was right.”
“Loco?”
“Horses sometimes eat loco weed and go berserk out here,” Dominic said. “He meant I went wild and started acting crazy.”
“I see. It’s a very colorful word, isn’t it? You have many words that-” She broke off as her throat tightened and the breath left her body. He was looking at her with that same expression she had seen as he lay beside her on the mat that night. His lips held a heavy sensuality and the hollowed lines of his cheeks were taut with hunger. Then he looked away and she could breathe again.
She must have been mistaken. He had said he no longer wanted her and there was no reason to disbelieve him. She knew very well she was not a woman a man would want to bed. “I should like to study the origin of some of your American words sometime. Perhaps when we come back from Kantalan I-”
“Kantalan.” His glance flew back to her face. “I would have thought you’d realize by now that I have no intention of taking you to Kantalan.” He slowly shook his head in wonder. “I can’t understand you. You were nearly raped, you fell into a gorge and almost split your head open. You’ve taken risks that no sane woman would take, and all because you want to find a lost city which probably no longer exists, if it ever did.”
“But it does exist,” she said softly. Her eyes grew misty and faraway. “I know it does. All my life I’ve dreamed of Kantalan and known that I would go there someday. From the first moment I heard my father speak of it, I knew I’d walk the streets of Kantalan and see the temples and-” She broke off as he made a sharp exclamation. She frowned in puzzlement as she saw his expression held surprise and for a flickering moment even a touch of fear. Then it was quickly shuttered again and she thought she must have been mistaken. “Is there something wrong?”
“Walk the streets of Kantalan,” he repeated. “It’s a curious phrase. I suppose it just startled me. You act as if you can really see yourself there.”
“I can.” She raised herself on one elbow, her eyes bright with eagerness. “Sometimes I see it and know that I belong there. I realize it’s only my imagination, but there’s nothing wrong with dreaming, is there? Sometimes reality is more bearable if one comes to it from dreams. Haven’t you ever had a dream that was so strong, so clear, it was more real than the world around you?”
“Yes.” Killara. Many times he had dreamed he was home at Killara and woke to find only bitterness, ashes, and loneliness. “Yes, I’ve had dreams like that.”
“Then surely you realize how I feel about Kantalan. Won’t you take me there?”
Walk the streets of Kantalan. The phrase echoed in his memory and sent a chill rippling down his spine. Coincidence. It had to be the merest coincidence, but it still brought him the same sense of fear and dread he had known the night White Buffalo had told him the prophecy.
She was looking at him as if he could grant her the gift she had yearned for all the days of her life. He felt suddenly heady with power. He could give her this. He had hurt and shamed her, but he could make amends by giving her what she asked. He opened his lips to answer her and then closed them again without speaking. If White Buffalo’s prophecy held any truth, what she wanted could also bring her death and he would not risk it. Perhaps he believed more in that prophecy than he had thought, perhaps his skepticism regarding Kantalan had actually cloaked fear.
He stood up. “No, I won’t take you to Kantalan.”
Her eyes were suddenly blazing with excitement. “But you
