They had gone beyond subterfuge. He wouldn’t lie to her again. “I know where Kantalan is supposed to be. That doesn’t mean it’s actually there.” His lips tightened. “And I won’t take you. Sometimes it’s better for everyone not to have a dream realized.”
“But why-”
“No!” The word echoed on the air like a whistling lash of rawhide. “I’m taking you back to Hell’s Bluff tomorrow. We’ll start out at sunset, it will be cooler then so the trip will be easier for you. You’ll stay at the hotel until you’re fully recovered and then I’ll put you on the stage for Tucson. Can’t you see you don’t belong here? You almost
“I may not belong here,” she whispered. Her eyes were enormous in her pale face. “But I do belong in Kantalan. Take me there.”
He muttered a curse beneath his breath. “Didn’t you listen to a word I said? You’re not going to Kantalan. You’re going home.” He turned on his heel and stomped toward the door. “Make up your mind to it. You’re definitely going home.”
As he uttered the last sentence the door opened to reveal Silver gazing at him with raised brows. “You’re sending someone else home?” she asked. “There will soon be no one left. I came to tell you Patrick has gone. He rode out a few minutes ago.”
Dominic experienced a sharp thrust of pain. It was what he had wanted, what was necessary, but that didn’t help relieve his sudden sense of terrible aloneness. “No, there will be no one left,” he repeated dully. He moved past Silver and stood in the doorway watching Patrick’s quickly retreating figure as the chestnut negotiated the twists of the winding trail that bordered the gorge. Then, as Patrick was lost to view beyond a curve in the trail, Dominic pulled his gaze away. “I picked up some soap and bandages in town. I’ll fetch them from my saddlebags.”
He shut the door behind him.
Elspeth gazed at the door, a pensive frown wrinkling her brow. She had glimpsed pain and sadness and poignant regret at the moment Dominic had left the cabin. She had thought him hard, even ruthless, and never dreamed he could display softer emotions. Her gaze moved to Silver’s face. “Why did he send Patrick away?”
“He loves him and he fears for him,” Silver said matter-of-factly. “There are many men who would like to kill Dominic and he thinks they will also kill the ones he loves. The Delaneys are a very close family and they protect their own.” She came to Elspeth’s side. “I’m glad he brought fresh bandages. It was difficult to keep these clean.” She began to untie the white linen binding Elspeth’s head wound. “It will be easier once we’re in Hell’s Bluff.”
“The Delaneys,” Elspeth murmured. She was suddenly intensely curious about the family that had brought forth such wildly differing offspring as Dominic, Patrick, and Silver. “Tell me about them, Silver.”
“What do you wish to know?”
“Everything. I’d like to know everything.”
Silver began to bathe the cut on Elspeth’s head. “The old man, Shamus, and his wife Malvina, came here from Ireland in 1842. They had nine sons and five are still living-Joshua, Falcon, Dominic, Cort, and Sean. He has three grandchildren; Patrick, Brianne, and William.”
“And you,” Elspeth said. “Patrick said you were his cousin.”
Silver’s eyes flickered. “The old man will not admit I am his kin. There is no proof. My mother was only an Indian who caught his son, Boyd’s, eye. He bedded her, left his seed, and rode out of our village without another thought. When my mother grew big with child, Sun Eagle, the brave to whom she had been promised, decided to redeem his honor. He killed Boyd Delaney and took my mother away to a tribe far to the north of here. When I was born, I had these.” Her hand gestured to indicate the startling crystal gray of her eyes. “Sun Eagle was willing to accept my mother, but not look upon me, her shame, with every passing day. One night he rode down from the north and left me wrapped in a blanket on the porch of the homestead at Killara.” Her lips twisted. “And the next morning Shamus sent me to the village of my mother’s father, Black Bear, with a message that I was no blood of his.”
Elspeth felt a surge of poignant sympathy. “How terrible for you.”
Silver’s expression became suddenly fierce. “Why? Black Bear was very kind to me. There were others in the village who had no use for a white man’s leavings, but I had no need of the old man’s charity. I would have been just as happy not to have ever seen the Delaneys again. It was Rising Star who made me come back to Killara.”
“Rising Star? I’ve heard that name mentioned before.”
“She is my aunt and married to Joshua. It was at the feasting when they were joined that Joshua’s brother met my mother. Joshua took my aunt to Killara and she lives there like a fine lady.” A fleeting wistfulness touched Silver’s expression. “When I was five she came to our camp and took me home with her. For four months of every year she kept me with her, giving me schooling and teaching me white men’s ways. It was a very brave thing for her to do. She has always been frightened of the old man and he didn’t want me there, even for just four months out of the year.”
“She sounds like a very splendid lady.”
Silver’s lips curved in a bittersweet smile. “I said she lives ‘like’ a fine lady, but she is Indian and the whites never let us forget.” Her expression softened. “But Rising Star truly is a wonderful woman. I am proud to call her my aunt. She bears her pain with the strength of a great warrior.”
“Pain?”
Silver’s lips thinned. “You have heard enough about the Delaneys. If you want to know more, you must ask your man to tell you.”
Elspeth’s eyes widened in bewilderment. “My man?”
Silver shrugged. “Dominic.”
Wild rose color stained Elspeth’s cheeks. “You misunderstood. He’s not my-” She moistened her lips and started again. “I know our circumstances are not the most proper but…”
Silver was gazing at her in puzzlement. “Why do you lie to me? When you wept and screamed in fear, only he could comfort you, and when he thought you were going to die, he was as fierce and sorrowful as if you had been his squaw for many years. I know the signs of belonging.” An ironic smile touched her lips. “One who does not belong anywhere can always read such signs very well.”
“Well, you’ve read the signs wrong this time.” Had Dominic genuinely felt concern for her? The idea was fascinating. She wondered if he had really looked at her with pain and sorrow as Silver claimed. It was clear he wasn’t as hard a man as she had first thought. His love for his nephew, Patrick, was plain enough to see; there was no mistaking the remorse he felt for his part in her injury. She had even believed for a moment that he was going to give in to her plea to lead her to Kantalan. Still, Silver had to be mistaken.
“You are smiling,” Silver said softly, her shrewd gaze fixed on Elspeth’s face. “I think perhaps the idea of belonging to Dominic does not displease you.” Then, as Elspeth opened her lips to protest, Silver placed two fingers on them to silence her. “Hush, be silent now and rest. Later you can think of man-woman things.”
The next evening Elspeth found she could think of little else besides man-woman things. For the principal reason that she found all the curves and valleys of her woman’s body were pressed against Dominic’s equally obvious masculine attributes.
Silver had dressed her in a pair of her own knee-high moccasins and a clean blue shirt belonging to Dominic that came past her knees. Then she had wrapped Elspeth so tightly in the freshly washed tan blanket that she could scarcely move a muscle.
“There. Just like an Indian baby in a papoose,” she had said with satisfaction. “I will tell Dominic he can take you now. I will clean up the cabin and follow you to Hell’s Bluff when I finish.”
“Take me?” Elspeth asked faintly.
“You are too weak to sit on a saddle. He will have to take you up in front of him.” Then, noticing Elspeth’s suddenly apprehensive expression, she continued comfortingly, “Don’t worry, Dominic is a fine rider, almost as good as an Apache. He won’t let you fall.”
“That’s very reassuring.”
There was nothing in the least reassuring, however, just an hour later as she lay across the saddle in the curve of Dominic’s arm. She was pressed against Dominic’s hard, muscular body with every swaying step the stallion took.
The layers of material separating them might have been nonexistent for all the difference they made. Intimacy. She was feeling that same blinding sense of intimacy she had experienced when Dominic had taken her naked foot
