The Drifter's Bride

He ushered her into motion, and they made their way along the ridge back toward the clearing. When they reached their campsite, she turned to him and raked a resentful glance over his tangle of brown hair and dusty coat and trousers.

‘You can take your turn to wash,’ she told him. ‘God knows you need it.’

He didn’t reply at first, and when he did, his voice was gruff. ‘I’d been riding for a week through the desert when I came across the valley with your father’s orchard. When he told me about you, I didn’t stay. Not even to eat. I rode on without stopping.’

She shot him a curious glance. ‘It’s a two-day ride to the Apache camp.’

Carl looked away. It seemed foolish now to have rushed out like that. He’d been eager to rescue a woman, hoping it might ease the pain of failing to rescue those young girls so many years before. ‘I rode through the night,’ he admitted finally. ‘Slowly, mind you, not to risk injury to the roan.’

‘I’m sorry that my father…tricked you…’

He listened to her muttered words and shrugged to dismiss the reluctant apology. He’d deal with her father when they got back to the farm. ‘I’ll go and have a wash,’ he informed her, and rubbed a hand over his bristly jaw. ‘Shave, too.’

‘If I hadn’t dropped my soap when you grabbed me, I could lend it to you.’

‘It’s all right.’ He gave a grudging nod to indicate that he appreciated her gesture of friendship. With a wry smile, he added, ‘I wouldn’t want to go around smelling of honeysuckle. Attracts flies almost as much as it attracts men. I have a cake of carbolic in my saddlebags.’

‘Do you have any food?’

He sauntered across the clearing and pulled a bar of soap and a towel from his saddlebags on the ground. Then he tossed the worn leather satchels in front of her and walked over to his horse. ‘You’ll find something to eat inside,’ he promised. ‘I’ll take Grace down to the creek with me.’

‘Grace? You gave a woman’s name to a gelding?’

‘Seemed fitting. The horse is the most precious thing I own.’ He regretted the words as soon as they were out, but Jade didn’t stop to question the comment.

‘Beans…jerky…coffee,’ she muttered as she dug in the saddlebags.

A few paces down the path, Carl brought the roan to a halt and turned to look back over his shoulder. ‘Remember,’ he told the girl. ‘I’ll take you back, and I’ll get paid for it. If you run, I’ll catch you every time. I’ll take you back because that’s what I do. And I always get paid for my trouble.’

Past memories flickered through his mind. Too often as a child he’d worked until his body ached and his hands bled raw, and then had not been given what he’d been promised, even if it might have only been a few scraps of food.

Never again.

If Carl Ritter took on a job, he’d damn well collect his pay.

Chapter Two

Jade stirred the pan of beans over the flames. Behind her she heard the clatter of hooves as the man led his horse back up the slope. Moving without a sound, like a shadow in the thickening darkness, he paused to secure the gelding to a grassy spot on the edge of the clearing and then came to sit down on the ground beside her.

‘I’ll give you the plate and spoon,’ she told him, focused on the food she was dishing out. ‘I’ll use the wooden ladle and eat from the pan.’ She turned to pass him the heaped plate. As her gaze fell on him, she almost tipped the beans and jerky into the dust.

He had shaved, and since he hadn’t taken a razor from his saddlebags, he must have used the bowie knife he kept in his boot. A frisson crept over Jade as she imagined the lethal blade scraping against his skin. He’d managed it with only two cuts, one on the side of his jaw, the other at the corner of his mouth—the exact spot where a woman would place her lips if she couldn’t decide whether to kiss him on the cheek or full on the mouth.

Up to now, she hadn’t realized how young he was. He couldn’t be more than thirty. And he was beautiful. His face was sharply drawn, with high cheekbones, a straight nose and a square chin. The wide, full mouth contrasted with the hollow leanness of his cheeks—a leanness she suspected was natural to his features, for his body lacked the gauntness of a man suffering from starvation.

Unaware of her scrutiny, he took the plate from her. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and directed his attention to the food. After a moment, he spoke again. ‘Your father wants you home, but you’d rather be with the Apache. Is that right?’

She nodded. ‘That’s about the size of it.’

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘Why what? Why I go to the Apache, or why my father wants me back?’

‘Both.’

Jade dunked the wooden spoon into the pan and swirled it about. ‘My mother was Apache. Pa married her when she was just a girl. Arizona Territory was young then, and there were few white women around. Many men took Indian wives.’ She paused to slip the final mouthful between her lips, chewed and swallowed. ‘Then, after the War Between the States, people started pouring out West. The Indians became the new enemy. I was only a few years old, and I didn’t look Indian. Ma and Pa decided I’d have an easier life if people thought I was white. They told people my mother was from Italy, but she died birthing me, and Pa took an Indian woman to look after me.’

‘How did the truth come out?’

Jade hesitated. ‘I never minded the lies while Ma lived. I got to go to school. They don’t take half-breeds. When I grew up, I was invited to dances. I had friends, girls from good families. Then…’

She shifted her shoulders, not quite sure if even she fully understood the actions that had made her into an outcast in the small ranching town of Mariposa. ‘Then Ma died. After we buried her, I just couldn’t take the lies anymore. I wanted people to know she’d been my mother, even if that changed how they saw me. I ran off to join Ma’s tribe. They’re not on a reservation, although I expect they’ll soon be herded onto one. The word soon got around. Everyone learned that Sam Armstrong’s daughter was living with a bunch of dirty savages, and they finally figured out she was one herself.’

‘Why does your Pa send men to rescue you?’

‘Pa has a fruit farm. Indians are not allowed to own property, and he fears the farm will be taken from me when he dies, now that people know I’m half Indian. He wants to…’ Jade fell silent. How could she tell the stranger that her father wanted to marry her off to the first white man who’d have her?

She pushed up to her feet and put out a hand to take his empty plate and spoon. ‘Pa doesn’t want me living with the Indians. When a stranger rides by, he spins a story that I’m a captive and offers money for my rescue. Star—that’s my horse—gets left behind, but he finds his way home when the Apache turn him loose.’

Her rescuer leaned forward to throw another dry branch into the flames from the pile she had collected before she started cooking. ‘I promised your father to bring you back and I intend to keep my promise,’ he informed her. ‘And I’ll collect the money, you can be sure of that. Then if you want me to, I’ll take you back to the Apache camp.’

Startled, she watched the flames flare and leap. Flickering lights danced over the stranger’s stark features, making him look grim and dangerous. ‘You’ll take me back?’ she asked, not quite sure she’d understood him correctly.

‘Yes.’ His voice was low, his gaze fixed on the fire. ‘No one should be forced to be somewhere they don’t want to be. Man or woman, white or Indian, each person should be allowed to choose their own fate.’

‘What’s your name?’ Jade asked, battling the odd tension that had seized her.

He shot her a glance. ‘Carl Ritter.’

‘Carl Ritter,’ Jade repeated in a soft whisper.

Then she turned away and used water from her canteen to rinse the dishes. Worry over what might happen the next day twisted in her belly. She knew without a doubt that her father didn’t have the hundred dollars Carl Ritter expected to collect.

* * *

A cry woke her. Jade sat up in the darkness and strained her ears. It came again—a muffled wail of distress. She threw the blanket aside and eased around the fire circle where embers still smoldered. Carl Ritter lay tossing restlessly in his sleep. He had given her his bedroll, and the folded towel beneath his head provided the only comfort against the hard ground.

The choked sounds formed into words. She bent closer and listened.

‘I’ll get you out. I promise. Stand back. I’ll get you out.’

His hands shot up and made clawing motions in the air. She jerked away, but not fast enough. His fingers caught the front of her shirt and fisted in the fabric, tipping her off balance. She toppled forward, landing half on top of him, the prickly grass biting into her palms as she tried to control her fall.

His arms closed around her, as if in an embrace. ‘I’ve got you. You’re safe now.’ The hoarse, throaty voice broke into a sob of relief. Beneath her breasts, she could feel his chest heaving with harsh intakes of breath, could feel the frantic pounding of his heart.

‘It’s okay,’ Jade whispered. ‘It’s only a dream.’

His hold tightened, anchoring her close. Jade lifted her head to study his face. Even in sleep, terror and grief flickered across his features, contorting them into a grimace. She reached up and touched her fingertips to one lean cheek.