would be certain suicide. You wouldn’t last a day.”
“For that day I would be free and my own person, not a piece of property.” She’d stood stiffly in front of him, now she made a gesture of entreaty, or anger, or both. She didn’t know herself. “Have you ever been a prisoner, Indian? Made to be a lesser person?”
“I’ve always been free,” he said. “Different degrees of freedom, at different times, but free, nevertheless.”
“That’s what I’m asking for now, a different degree of freedom. The right to choose where I live and die, and how.”
“I can’t. You wouldn’t have a chance, and you wouldn’t have a choice. You would be hunted down.”
“Then I would have tried, that counts for something.”
“You wouldn’t think so if Snake got to you first.”
She gestured toward the road, so far away Beauty looked like a toy and the bikes like pawns of a board game. Even the bikers seemed innocuous from this perspective. Comic, toy soldiers scattered by a petulant child, waiting to be put away at the end of a hard day of play.
Appearances were misleading, the handsome man standing in front of her was proof of that. “Snake, Custer, Blue Doggie, the one called Hogan. The others.” Her arm fell heavily to her side. She returned her gaze to him. “You. Why would it matter?”
He showed no reaction to her scorn. “Then consider this. When all choices are evil, isn’t it wise to choose the lesser?”
“Something else your grandfather taught you?” She sneered.
“No.” His grandfather would have fought to the death. It was his way. The Apache way. Indian didn’t want that choice for her. He wouldn’t want it for any innocent, but especially not for Patience O’Hara.
“Then you thought up this tidbit of wisdom all by yourself?” Patience taunted recklessly. “In your tiny, screwed-up little mind?”
A muscle flickered in his jaw, his teeth clenched as he silenced a reply. “We will discuss the size and condition of my mind another time,” he said instead. “And, yes, the tidbit was mine.”
“Let me guess. The lesser of the multitude of evils I seem to have attracted would be...” She pointed a finger at his chest, as if it were a gun. “Of course! You.”
“For a woman who has more guts than brains, yes.”
“My choice is a man who gives his word, most solemnly, then waffles and bends his promise to suit his needs?”
“Enough!” The command underscored an imperious gesture. “It’s no wonder you have no husband! You would talk a man to death.”
“You don’t know that I’m not married,” Patience lashed back at him. “You know nothing about me.”
“You wear no ring.”
“Neither do you and for all I know, or care, you could have a dozen wives.”
“I have no wife. When I do, there will be only one.”
“Only one, huh? And you would wear her ring?”
Indian didn’t hesitate. “If she wished, yes.”
“Have you, in your great wisdom, considered that perhaps my husband is a modern man? A man not bound by ancient symbolism, who doesn’t wish it?”
“Never.” He wondered if she knew how mysteriously beautiful she was in the half-light. How magnificently courageous. “The man who becomes your husband will put his ring on you,” he said thoughtfully, “to show the world that such a woman is his.”
The response startled her, catching her with no caustic reply. “But you said—”
“I know what I said.” He cut her short, exasperated with himself. He wasn’t a man who revealed his thoughts, a natural trait and habit that had saved his life many times. He would need to watch carefully with this woman. She had the skill to draw from him more than he wished. More than was wise.
“Come.” Catching her by the shoulder, he pulled her to his side. “We’ve wasted too much time. By now the last of the beer from the saddlebags will be consumed. I should see that they move along before their mood turns ugly.”
When he meant to return to the road with her in tow, she resisted, digging her heels into the sand. “No!”
He spun around, his face a dark visage. “Don’t try me more. You’ve pushed your luck as far as it can go.”
“So?” She glared at him when he would not release her arm. “What do I have to lose? What have I ever had to lose?”
“A fight, then? To the bitter end?”
“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“At given and appropriate times.”
“On cue?” She laughed, a sound completely lacking humor. “In your dreams, chief.”
He raised a sardonic brow. “I’ve been promoted? Good. Perhaps you’ll be happier with a chief than a lowly Indian.” He pulled her along the trail with him, ignoring her opposition.
“Wait.” She clutched at his vest, her fingers brushing the heated flesh beneath. “I haven’t made my choice.”
He stopped, turning to catch her in his arms as she bumped into him. His face was fierce, his eyes narrowed. “I made the choice for you.”
She gripped the supple leather as if she would tear it. Through gritted teeth, she spat, “You have no right.”
“I have every right, and you have none.”
When she would have lashed back at him, he silenced her with a look so savage her protest died in her throat.
“What? No grievance?” he taunted. “Has the wildcat finally sheathed her useless claws?”
She looked up at him, seeing a man she hadn’t seen before. “Who are you? What are you?” she asked, bemused. “How many men are you?”
Though he spoke sternly, the anger in him subsided. An anger addressing his weakness as much as her stubborn strength. “I’m one man. Who I am isn’t important. What I am, what I became the moment you chose to travel this path, is your only hope. With or without your cooperation I’m going to find a way to get you out of this. Unharmed and unmolested by anyone.”
“Does that little declaration include you?” The caustic gibe slipped from her tongue before she could recall it.
“Yes, especially me.” His expression was impassive. “There is one choice you have. We’re going to your car. If you have luggage—” a shocked and angry look confirmed his instinctive guess that she did “—you will select the clothing and necessities you might need at our camp. You can cooperate and come willingly, or I’ll carry you.”
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