“Heard of it,” Rafe agreed as he grabbed a brush to tend his prize gelding. “Never associated it with marriage, however. My grandparents’ marriages were arranged, as were my parents, as mine has been. It’s no different than accepting an assignment with the army. You take what you are given and you make the best of it.”
“And my parents, though they hailed from drastically different cultures and contrasting civilizations, defied it all because they loved each other,” Micah maintained then grinned teasingly. “All I can say is that you whites have a strange way of looking at things. And some say Indians are heathens,” he added with a smirk. “Ask me, it’s the other way around.”
“Be that as it may,” Rafe said as he rewarded Sergeant with a bucket of grain, “I agreed to marry Vanessa when the Land Run is over and business in this territory is functioning smoothly.”
He pivoted to shoulder his way past Micah, who was leaning leisurely against the top rail of the stall. “In the meantime, I have to focus my time and efforts on protecting the Unassigned Lands against settler intrusion and attempt to maintain law and order.”
Micah shrugged as he followed Rafe from the stables. “Whatever you say, Major Hunter, but I still contend there is life beyond the military. After I served with the Choctaw light-horsemen to police the territory and guarantee my credentials, I joined the army so I wouldn’t be stuck on the reservation like my mother’s people. I’m not married to the army. When the right woman comes along, I intend to marry for love, not because her name will sound good when it’s linked to mine. That, I assure you, will be my very last consideration.”
Honestly, Rafe sometimes wondered how he and Micah had formed such a strong, lasting friendship when they came from such different walks of life. Maybe the truth was that Rafe envied Micah’s laid-back manner and his philosophies that were steeped in Indian beliefs.
In the early years of their friendship they had relied on each other’s knowledge and backgrounds to broaden their horizons and make them well-rounded soldiers. Now they were as close as brothers and had saved each other’s hide several times during harrowing campaigns against the hostile Plains Indians who had escaped from the reservations in New Mexico.
“Let me know if you need help dealing with your latest prisoner,” Micah commented as he veered toward his quarters.
Rafe snorted at the reminder of the upcoming encounter with the red-haired firebrand who was occupying his room. Now there was a woman he could never love—if there was such a thing as love.
Indeed, Micah was welcome to the smart-mouthed little witch. Rafe preferred to associate with women who allowed him to behave like the gentleman his family had groomed him to be. It didn’t sit well to know that he had tackled a woman, straddled her hips and held her underwater until she practically drowned, just to make her surrender.
Rafe smiled in reluctant admiration when he recalled how that belligerent hellion had refused to accept defeat, despite the odds against her. She had more spunk and spirit than most men he knew.
Exasperated, Karissa Baxter paced Commander Hunter’s living quarters. It irked her that the bedroom and sitting room were neat as pins. Everything was in its proper place—lined up like soldiers on parade.
Most of the men she had encountered in her twenty-six years never bothered to pick up after themselves. Her father certainly hadn’t and neither did her younger brother, Clint. She had taken care of him since he was six years old and she had tried to become the mother they had lost to typhoid. Because she felt sorry for Clint, she had pampered him.
Karissa halted beside the window when the regimental band stuck up a lively tune. There was no way she could escape through the window, not with so many soldiers milling around the place. She had already tried the door and found it had been secured from outside. The commander had taken extra precautions because she had made the mistake of letting him know she wasn’t beneath doing whatever necessary to escape.
Karissa sighed audibly and resumed her pacing, serenaded by the regimental band. How long was she going to be detained at the fort? Probably until His Highness decreed that she could leave. And if Rafe Almighty Hunter thought for one minute that she was going to provide him with sexual satisfaction while she was under arrest then he had another think coming!
She had learned long ago to size up men and situations quickly and she could think of only one reason Rafe insisted that she would stay in his private quarters. For all his refined good looks and prestigious position at the fort, he was still a man, she reminded herself cynically.
The thought caused her to break stride. She was a woman who had learned to stand up for herself and depend on no one but herself. She had also learned to take advantage of situations, to survive as best she could. If Rafe Hunter had in mind to take her to bed while she was under arrest then she was damn well going to make it worth her while.
In short, one favor exchanged for another. If she was forced to give up her innocence then, by damned, she was going to profit from it.
She would negotiate with that dignified commander who ruled this roost. One night in his bed for her freedom. That was the deal. He was not getting something that intimate and personal from her for nothing!
She was determined to quit this place and return to the new territory to protect the land she wanted to claim. Yet, the prospect of surrendering to the lusty desires of a man unsettled her. Karissa had spent years mastering the art of discouraging men from approaching her with amorous intentions. Never once had she tried to attract a man’s attention. Who would have thought that she would be standing here wishing she had the skills of an accomplished courtesan?
Karissa laughed at the absurdity of the thought, but she didn’t laugh for long. She had made a pact with herself to do whatever it took for her and her brother to make a fresh new start in the newly created Oklahoma Territory. After being dragged along behind her father from one saloon to another in every cow town in Kansas, she asked for nothing more than to put down roots and have a home.
She was sick to death of the gypsy lifestyle her father had forced on her and Clint. Sick to death of being referred to as the gambler’s brats and treated like pariahs by the so-called respectable members of local society.
Having been soured by proper society’s condescension, it was little wonder that she had felt instant hostility toward the fort commander. In her mind he represented the establishment that had treated her shabbily for years on end. Yet, despite his position of authority, despite his mud-caked eyebrows and eyelashes, despite smudges of slime on his chin and cheeks, he was still the most strikingly attractive man she had ever laid eyes on.
He stood six feet four inches tall and had to weigh more than two hundred pounds—she should know since he had nearly squashed her flat while he sat on her to hold her down in the creek. His eyes were the color of hammered steel. His shoulders were noticeably broad and his long legs were solid muscles—she knew that, too, because she had been pressed flush against him during the ride to the garrison.
Although she definitely disliked Rafe on general principle, there was no denying that he could turn a woman’s head. Even Karissa’s.
“Obviously, he held you under water so long that it turned your brain to bog,” Karissa muttered at herself.
When the doorknob rattled, Karissa spun around and mentally prepared herself. She struck a saucy pose, imitating dozens of dance-hall queens who called attention to themselves to entice drunken cowboys to private rooms, in exchange for cash.
Rafe
