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“I sent them to one of the springs to pick wild grapes,” she said, her attention focused intently on the angry flesh on his leg. “Ready? On three—”
Tara didn’t wait until the count of three. She wanted to get this grisly task completed before John tensed up. Even then, he nearly came off the pallet when she touched the heated blade to his thigh. All the while she told herself that if she could prevent gangrene and spare his leg, and his life, it was worth his suffering—and hers.
Watching beads of perspiration trickling from his brow, seeing the tears swimming in his eyes, noting the complete lack of color in his chiseled features was killing Tara, bit by excruciating bit. John let out a pained howl that nearly blasted holes in her eardrums. His hand clamped around her wrist like a vise grip when she reflexively eased the blade away from his wound.
“Not long enough,” he said through clenched teeth. “You know it. I know it. Again, Irish.” His hand guided hers downward, completing the unpleasant process.
Tears floated in Tara’s eyes as she watched him deal with agonizing pain. This, she realized, was no ordinary man. In the face of adversity, he was extraordinary. Had their roles been reversed, Tara was pretty sure she would’ve been screeching hysterically and fighting him with every ounce of strength she possessed. He, however, held her hand steady to thoroughly sear the wound.
“Damn, here I was hoping I’d pass out,” John panted as he drew her hand and the blade toward his rib cage.
His intense gaze locked on hers again. He stared unblinking at her, while what must’ve been excruciating pain blazed through him. Unintentionally, he nearly crushed the bones in her wrist in his effort to force her to finish the gruesome task. When she would’ve pulled away again, he ensured that she remained steady and relentless. Tara was crying by the time he allowed her to withdraw the knife, and she practically collapsed beside him when the gruesome deed was done.
“You’re one hell of a woman, Irish,” he said, between gasps of breath.
“You did most of the work and endured all the pain,” she reminded him as she wiped the beads of perspiration from his brow, his upper lip. “Were I you, I’d have fainted dead away minutes ago.”
She was so close to him and he was so overcome with pain that he wasn’t thinking clearly. That was his only explanation for what he did next. He up and kissed her right on the mouth, just like he’d told himself he was not going to do—ever. He was pretty sure he got lost in the sweet taste and compelling scent of her, because the next thing John knew the world turned as black as the inside of a cave and swallowed him up.
Dazed, her lips tingling, her body shimmering with unfamiliar sensation, Tara gaped at her patient, who’d collapsed unconscious on the pallet. In the first place, she couldn’t believe he’d kissed her. Secondly, she couldn’t believe she’d kissed him back. But she supposed if any man ever deserved to steal a kiss—and get away with it—it was John Wolfe. Considering what he’d endured, he probably hadn’t realized what he was doing. Either that or he’d sought comfort in a moment of maddening pain.
Like a crawdad, Tara scuttled backward, then covered John’s limp body with the sheet, which had shifted sideways during the ordeal by fire. While she cleaned and bandaged the wounds, she decided she’d treat the unexpected kiss as if it had never happened. Chances were that he wouldn’t remember it, anyway.
It didn’t mean anything. She could not let it mean anything, she told herself firmly. Still, the feel of his lips devouring hers with something akin to desperation left sizzling aftershocks rippling through her body.
Tara willfully shook off the tantalizing sensations and climbed to her feet. She tiptoed over to retrieve her sewing kit so she could mend her torn dress. Now was as good a time as any to repair the damage. And she’d do so as soon as her hands stopped shaking and she could breathe without John’s masculine scent clogging her senses completely.
Chapter Three
During the days that followed, John’s energy returned gradually. He received periodic visits from the brood of children. They came alone. They came in pairs. They came in a group. But Tara never once approached him without a chaperone of one or two children following at her heels. He reckoned the impulsive kiss he’d planted on her dewy, soft lips was responsible for her standoffish manner.
Not that he blamed her. He’d been more than a little surprised by it himself, especially after he’d sworn up one side and down the other that there could be nothing more than friendship between them. He supposed the agonizing pain of the ordeal had triggered the impulse, making natural instinct difficult to control.
He should apologize, but the truth was that he wasn’t sorry he’d kissed her. She was the one taste of purity and sweetness in his violent and isolated world. He wouldn’t let it happen again, of course. His Irish angel of mercy was now, and forever more, off-limits.
“You want some bread and wild grape jelly, Zohn Whoof?” young Flora asked as she sank down cross-legged beside him on the pallet.
John smiled at the cute little tyke who had already wedged her way into his heart. He couldn’t help himself. The kid was warm and giving and altogether adorable, especially when she invented her own unique way of pronouncing his name.
“Bread and jelly sounds mighty good, half-pint.”
Flora slathered jelly on a slice of bread, then handed it to him. “I help Tara make the jelly. We have jars and jars of it stored in the root cellar.”
John sighed contentedly at the first bite. Someone around here really could cook, and he presumed it was Tara. Of course, as far as he could tell, there wasn’t much that she couldn’t do well. He’d watched her come and go from dawn until dusk without a single complaint. She always had a smile and kind word for the children. Her organizational skills, he’d noted, were a marvel, and she made time for each child’s individual needs.
This unique family fascinated him, even though the life they led was utterly foreign to him. It’d been years since John had felt family ties, felt as if he belonged anywhere. Not that he belonged here, of course. But this family didn’t treat him as an outsider, the way most folks did when he ventured into one town, then another. Usually, people didn’t engage him in conversation or venture too close. He figured most folks considered a man who was part lawman, gunfighter and bounty hunter unworthy of respect because he dealt with evil, violence and death on a regular basis.
John had pried bits and pieces of information from the younger children to appease his curiosity about Tara, though he told himself repeatedly that his fascination with her was ill-advised and impractical. He’d discovered that Tara was a passable markswoman who could put wild game on the table to feed her brood. That she harvested and processed vegetables from the garden, and had somehow managed to acquire the livestock that grazed in the canyon. He was incredibly curious to know how these acquisitions were made on her limited budget.
There were, however, two other things about Tara that he didn’t know and was dying to find out—where had she acquired her unique family and where had she been sleeping since John crawled onto the pallet so she could sleep on her bed. She wasn’t using the bed, he’d discovered. He figured he’d ferret the information from the loquacious five-year-old who was feeding him bread and jelly. If there was one thing he’d learned about Flora it was that she loved to talk, and most of the thoughts bouncing around in her head made their way to her tongue.
“Do you have another bedroom in the cabin where you and the other children sleep?” he asked nonchalantly.
Flora sampled a piece of bread, then nodded. “Maureen and I sleep in the other bedroom and the boys sleep in the loft above us.”
“Tara has been sleeping with you, too?”
She shook her dark head. “Nope, she moved into the barn loft.”
The barn loft? John cursed under his breath. That woman was making all sorts of sacrifices for him and the children. He was the one who should be sleeping in the straw. He’d slept in the great out-of-doors for years and was accustomed to it. On rare occasions, while on his forays to track down criminals, he rented a hotel room.
“Tell Tara that I’ll be trading places with her,” John requested.
“Can’t do that,” Flora replied as she wiped her mouth, smearing jelly on her chin. “Tara says she wants you somewhere that’s clean and dry so you can mend properly. She also says the boys are gonna take you to the spring to bathe tomorrow. She says the mineral spring we found near one of the rock ledges will be good for you.”
“Hmm, Tara sure has lots to say, doesn’t she?”
“Certainly does,” Flora agreed. “But most of all, and she says this is very, very, very important, we’re a family and we’ll be together forever. She says no one will break our family apart ’cause we belong to each other.”
John wondered why that was the first commandment in the gospel according to Tara. Who wanted to break up this unusual family? And why did Tara instill that sense of unity and belonging in these children? It sounded a mite overprotective to him, but what the hell did he know? He hadn’t been a part of a clan for over five years.
“Where did you meet Tara, half-pint?” he asked.
Suspicion filled those wide, soulful eyes. “Tara says we’re not supposed to say anything to anybody about where we came from or how we got here. It’s a secret.”
Interesting, he mused. Maybe Tara had something to hide. If she thought he’d sit in judgment she was mistaken, because John Wolfe wasn’t who folks thought he was, either. After all, he’d slipped away from the reservation under cover of darkness, without permission.
According to the Indian roll call conducted the morning after Chief Gray Eagle bade him to escape and return to white society, White Wolf didn’t exist and his name wasn’t to be uttered again. In the Apache culture, the name of a deceased person was rarely mentioned. As far as the tribe was concerned, White Wolf was dead and gone.
Maybe he needed to have a private talk with Tara and assure her that whatever concerns his presence provoked were unnecessary…unless there were criminal charges involved and she felt threatened by his profession as a law officer. Damn, this could get ugly, thought John. Maybe he didn’t want to unlock those guarded secrets he saw flashes of in Tara’s eyes, after all.
“I have to leave now.” Flora popped to her feet. “Tara says I have to walk the lambs around the canyon to make ’em stronger.”
John suspected these compulsory walks were designed to build little Flora’s own stamina. The child was entirely too frail and thin.
“Calvin has to go with me,” Flora added as she scooped up the jar of jelly and leftover bread, “just in case I have trouble managing the sheep.”
Calvin, the seven-year-old with the noticeable limp, he mused. No doubt Tara ensured Calvin was getting his daily requirement of therapeutical exercise, too.
To John’s complete surprise, Flora abruptly reversed direction, dropped to her knees in front of him, then flung her bony arms around his neck to hug him tightly. “I love you, Zohn Whoof,” she whispered in his ear. “Maybe when you feel better you can walk the lambs with Calvin and me.”
John battled to draw breath after Flora scurried off. He couldn’t afford to become attached to these endearing children, damn it. Gray Eagle had given him a lifetime assignment of protecting the Apache from the whites. Plus Raven was running loose, aligning himself with a merciless outlaw gang, giving the Apache a bad name—as if the whites’ publicity hadn’t given the tribe a bad reputation already.
John had witnessed firsthand the atrocities committed against Indians. They’d been slaughtered like buffalo—women, children, elders and warriors alike. They’d been poisoned with strychnine, herded onto reservations and forced to sign treaties that gave white men their valuable and productive lands. In fact, Gray Eagle had been ordered, under penalty of death, to sign over several strips of land where silver and copper deposits had been discovered so the prospectors could mine the ores without sharing with the Indians.
John had done his damnedest to prevent the whites from stealing the Apache blind, but to no avail. He’d reclaimed his white heritage hoping to make a difference—and he’d failed, time and time again. It was enough to make a grown man weep, especially when he cursed himself countless times for being born white and growing up Apache. Half the time John didn’t know who the hell he was or where he rightfully belonged. And now this sweet little child, with her hollow eyes, pasty skin and delicate bones, was gushing with affection for him and looking up to him as if he were her beloved father. The kid was killing him, while he was trying to maintain an emotional distance from her and the rest of this extraordinary family.
John sighed heavily. This child and her entire family were definitely getting to him, hour by hour, day by day. He couldn’t afford to become attached, because it would make leaving this valley more difficult. He’d locked away all sentimental emotions the day the Apache captured him as a child and started training him to be one of them. If he allowed all these conflicts that roiled inside him to surface he wouldn’t know how to deal with them. He wasn’t sure he could face a single one without his thoughts getting all tangled up with the other feelings he’d buried in order to survive all the trials he’d faced in his life.
Besides, this family really didn’t have a place in his world, he reminded himself for the umpteenth time. He went about his grisly business of tracking down and apprehending vicious criminals that were overrunning the territory. No feelings allowed, John told himself sensibly, and he’d better not forget it. Life was a test of survival—that was the gospel according to John Wolfe.
Tara wasn’t prepared for the shock of seeing her patient fresh from his bath at the mineral springs where the boys had taken him. When she returned from doing chores in the barn, he was sitting on the wooden bench on the front porch. She missed a step when her gaze landed on his face, now devoid of the week’s growth of dark beard. To say that John was ruggedly handsome, with his bronzed skin, athletic physique, electrifying eyes and sensuous lips, had to be the understatement of the decade. The entire package of lean, powerful masculinity was enough to increase her heart rate and leave her feminine body aquiver.
Lord, listen to her, Tara scolded herself. She sounded as bad as Flora and Maureen, who sang John’s praises the whole livelong day. Of course, Tara had asked around Rambler Springs to see if anyone had heard of Marshal Wolfe. What she’d discovered was impressive and unnerving at once. This man who braved death on a daily basis was the stuff legends were made of, according to Wilma and Henry Prague, who ran the general store, as well as Corrine and Thomas Denton, who owned the restaurant. It was true that Wilma Prague was long-winded and tended to get caught up in the tales she liked to spin, but the hearsay she’d conveyed had kept Tara on the edge of her seat. John Wolfe’s feats of capturing the worst criminals in the territory were nothing short of phenomenal.
“Good morning, Irish,” John greeted her, breaking into her thoughts.
“Morning,” Tara murmured as she sank down on the bench beside him. “How are you feeling after your bath?”
“Revived and not the least bit anxious to spend another day indoors.”
“Not accustomed to it, I suppose, considering your line of work.”
He inclined his shiny raven head. “Exactly, which is why we’ll be switching sleeping quarters this evening,” he asserted.
That sounded like an order, and Tara had never been much good at taking them. “Excuse me, Mr. Wolfe, but I’m the one in charge of your rehabilitation. I’ll decide where you’ll sleep, especially when this happens to be my house you’re convalescing in.”
He merely chuckled at her flare of temper. “I’ve watched you and listened to you handle this passel of children with patience and gentle requests for nearly a week, Irish. In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve been shot. You’re supposed to be nice to me.”
“I have been for a week,” she countered. “So don’t push your luck.”
“How is it that I’ve ended up at the sharp end of your tongue? Is it me in particular or men in general?” He waited a beat, then asked, “Or is it because of that kiss?”
Tara glanced over to meet his penetrating stare, noticed that quirk of a smile that did funny things to her insides. She steeled herself against her innate attraction to him. “Perhaps a bit of all three,” she admitted honestly.
He stared across the grass, then his gaze lifted to the rock-capped summits of the canyon, admiring the panoramic view. “You’ve nothing to fear from me, Irish. There’ll be no incidents like the one you recently had with the miners. As for that kiss…well, consider it a needed compensation for the pain I was suffering. It won’t happen again.”
Tara couldn’t honestly say if she was disappointed or relieved. What was she thinking? Of course she was relieved, even if she felt as if she’d suffered another form of rejection. But allowing herself to become as attached to John as the children were already was dangerous business.
“Good, I’m glad we have that settled and out of the way,” she said, flashing him a smile. “As for the sleeping arrangements, you’re staying in my room and I don’t wish to hear another word about it.”
He smiled a mysterious smile, then shrugged. “Have it your way, Irish. I suspect you usually do.”
Tara snapped her head around and frowned at him.
“And what is that supposed to mean?” she challenged.
“Only that you’re accustomed to controlling the children, though I admit you rule with such a gentle hand and winsome smile that they don’t realize they’re being bossed around.”
“I suppose you’re accustomed to probing and prying and sticking your nose in various places because of your line of work.” Tara snapped her mouth shut, amazed that she was addressing John in such a sarcastic tone. Blast it, this man didn’t fit into the nice, neat world she’d created for the children and herself in Paradise Valley, and she was having trouble dealing with him. Why was that?
He shrugged a broad shoulder, seemingly unoffended by her sassy rejoinder. “I suppose you’re right, Irish. I do spend considerable time grilling witnesses before I track criminals. I’m inquisitive by nature and by habit….So, how’d you come to acquire this abandoned homestead here in what the Apache call the Canyon of the Sun?”
Tara blinked in surprise. “How do you know that?”
“About the abandoned ranch, you mean? The boys told me. They don’t seem to be quite as cautious about divulging information as you are. No doubt you instructed them to watch what they said around me. Now why is that?”
Tara opened her mouth to ask how he knew she’d instructed the children not to reveal more than necessary about their past, then figured she could already guess the answer. Flora had difficulty refraining from telling everything she knew, just to hear herself talk. So did young Calvin. He’d jabber all day if you let him.
Tara decided that telling the truth—or as much of the truth as she could—wouldn’t do any harm in this instance. “I acquired the deed to this abandoned farm after the children and I happened onto it, while searching for a shelter during a storm. When I inquired about the ranch in Rambler Springs, I learned the previous owners had left during the Indian uprising six years ago. Since the Apache were confined to San Carlos, it seemed safe enough to set up housekeeping here.” She peered questioningly at him. “How did you know this is sacred ground to the Apache?”
He was silent for a long moment while he scanned the panoramic valley with its towering cap rock, wild tumble of boulders, canopies of cedars, cottonwoods and pines, and its refreshing springs. Then he shifted slightly, and his solemn gaze probed hers with an intensity she’d come to expect from him. John didn’t simply look at her; he examined, studied and looked into her, as if he were reading her private thoughts.
“If I tell you the truth about that, will you explain how you came to acquire this unique family of yours, Irish?”
She knew he saw her flinch, for his astute gaze never seemed to miss a thing. She was beginning to think the phenomenal feats, the unerring instincts and tracking skills that Wilma Prague raved about weren’t an exaggeration. There was an extraordinary aura about this man—especially now that he was recovering from his injuries. He was sharply attuned to everything that transpired around him. He had a sixth sense she envied.
“Irish?” he prompted, holding her captive with nothing more than the intensity of his silvery stare. “What I’m offering here is something you can hold over my head, in exchange for something I can hold over yours. That will keep the battleground even, wouldn’t you agree?”
“We are going to do battle?” she asked, smiling impishly.
“I don’t know. Are we?” he questioned in turn.
She wasn’t quite sure she understood what made this unusual man tick. He wasn’t like her other male acquaintances. He was asking her to give him a weapon to use against her. In return, he was handing her a weapon. Why? she kept asking herself.
John studied the wary expression that claimed her enchanting features. He could tell she wasn’t sure what to make of him and his unexpected offer. But he’d be damned—literally—if he told her the truth about himself without some leverage, and he had to know if he could trust her to hold in confidence what he was about to tell her. Considering what this amazing woman had done for him, he wanted to trust her, to confide something that only Gray Eagle knew.
Why he was willing to stick out his neck John wasn’t sure. Maybe it was an instinctive response to the feelings Tara evoked in him. Maybe, with this life of isolation he’d been leading, he sought some kind of connection. Maybe he simply felt indebted because she’d saved his life. Maybe…John refused to delve deeper into the whys and wherefores. He’d looked a little too deeply already when it came to the feelings and sensations Tara aroused in him.
“Very well, John Wolfe, you have a bargain,” she agreed. “A sword for a sword, so to speak. But I want you to remember that you wouldn’t be alive today if not for me.”
He grinned, amused by her insistence that he shouldn’t forget he owed her his life.
“But I must have your word of honor that if you do decide to turn against me, after I answer your question, that you’ll become responsible for these children,” she insisted.
That was an odd thing for her to say, he thought. It suggested some deep dark secret that would make it impossible for her to care for the children if the truth came out.
John stared her straight in the eye and said, “I know this canyon is sacred Apache ground because I am Apache. Or at least I was an Apache until five years ago, when the uprisings were contained and the tribe was herded onto the reservation. Fact is, there is no John Wolfe.”
She gaped at him for a full minute. When her questioning gaze continued to focus directly on him, he nodded in confirmation. Then, suddenly, she burst out laughing. That wasn’t the reaction John had anticipated. Her riotous laughter drew the attention of the children, who were tending to various chores. The boys appeared from the shadows of the root cellar, which was in actuality a small cavern tucked beneath an overhanging rock ledge. The girls emerged from the house to stare at Tara in complete bewilderment.
Tara tossed back her head, sending the haphazard braid of red-gold hair cascading down her back. She cackled uproariously, then slapped her knee and cackled some more. To John’s disbelief, she curled into a ball and rolled off the bench onto the planked porch. Still giggling and gasping for breath, she clamped her hands around her ribs and guffawed. John and the children stared at her as if she’d gone insane.
“Oh, that…is…funny,” she said between howls of laughter.
Despite his baffled confusion, John broke into a grin while Tara rolled around on the porch, giggling and struggling to draw breath.
“Is she okay?” Samuel asked as he jogged toward the house.
“My gosh, what’s happening to her?” Derek said in alarm.
It was obvious to John that Tara had never allowed the children to see her reduced to fits of laughter. But why his confidential announcement had caused this reaction, he had no idea. He suspected Tara usually took her responsibility for the children quite earnestly and always displayed a facade of control—whether she felt in constant control or not.
Face flushed, tears streaming down her cheeks, Tara looked up at him and erupted in another fit of giggles. Each time she peered at him the hysterical fit began all over again.
“She’ll be fine,” he assured the concerned children. “Go tend to your chores. Maureen, perhaps you could bring Irish a cup of water. I think she’ll be needing one when she recovers from her fit of giggles.”
Reluctantly, the children turned away, but not without casting several worried glances over their shoulders. Tara was down to muffled snickers by the time Maureen returned with the water.
