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  “Major Warren, not here!” Teela cried, leaping up. “Have you completely lost your senses?”

  Warren nearly leapt at her, but Jarrett was on his feet as well, Tara soaring up beside him.

  “Major Warren, we do not fight the war here!” Jarrett exclaimed angrily. “Hear me, heed me. We do not fight the war on my property You are welcome here only so long as you remember that!”

  “Then I’ll have to take my daughter and leave this place with all haste, since you are determined to allow this man to hurl insults upon me.”

  “Don’t be a fool, sir!” James hissed furiously, standing straight as a blade. He bowed with the grace of a diplomat. “I will vacate the premises, Major Warren, and pray that you’ll not risk your daughter’s life because of your disavowal of the simple truth.”

  James swung around and stalked into the house.

  There was stunned silence for a moment as he departed. Not even Michael Warren seemed to have a quick response to James McKenzie’s departure.

  Then Jarrett broke the stillness. He threw his napkin down. “You will excuse me,” he said coldly to Warren, leaving the table to follow his brother.

  “Mr. McKenzie!” Warren roared after him. “There is a war on! You cannot straddle a fence here, don’t you see it? You’re a white man! White men, and their wives, fall prey to savages day in and day out. You will have to take a stance.”

  Jarrett paused, shoulders straight, his back to them all. He turned slowly and replied quietly, “Don’t ask that of me, Major Warren. The savage Indian who has just left his place here is my brother, my blood, and if I am forced to make a choice …” His voice trailed away. “He is my brother. My blood.” He turned once again to follow James.

  Teela started after Jarrett. A hand fell upon her shoulder, and she was wrenched back. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To apologize for your bad manners!” she told Warren furiously.

  He slapped her across the face.

  Tara still stood at the table, watching. She gasped with horror. “Major! I am appalled!”

  “Madam, you’ve not spent your life raising an unruly and willful child. Sometimes a man has nothing but the power of his fist to put the fear of God back into such a wicked body.”

  Teela gritted her teeth against the tears that had rushed to her eyes at the stinging slap. She was less in pain from the blow than she was from the humiliation that Tara had witnessed her distress. Perhaps that was what suddenly gave her renewed fury and strength, and all-out recklessness.

  She returned his blow, hard.

  Warren caught her wrist, dragging her close. Tara was still close, ready to cry out for Teela’s defense. Teela feared she had taken things too far. She didn’t want Tara calling for the men to return and bring the war to this haven where peace had managed to reign so long.

  She didn’t protest his hold. She bowed her head and listened as he whispered to her, his voice hateful but so low only Teela could hear his softly enunciated threat. “Think, daughter! Remember the beating you took when you walked out of the church? Tonight I will make you realize that was a small slap, girl. Tonight, your screams can blend with the wretched cries of the birds and the howls of the wolves. You will learn to listen to me, obey me, and honor my opinions! Or else this war will come here. And the McKenzie brothers will go down, both of them, so help me, God, I swear it! And you, you—precious creature!—will be the cause of it.”

  “Let me go!” she cried, then hesitated. She had to control her fury and her hatred for the moment. “Please, sir, let me go.” Not enough. But she knew him well. “Major, I will pray tonight for guidance from God that I may become obedient to your will.”

  “You will come with me now!”

  “I need my things, sir.”

  She wrenched free from him, then made haste to enter the house before anything further could happen.

  But she could hear Warren speaking stiffly to Tara as she made her escape. “Mrs. McKenzie, you will be so good as to make sure that my daughter knows I demand her presence on my ship. I’ll allow her an hour to pack her belongings. Then she will come to me, or I will come for her. And I beg of you, Mrs. McKenzie, I don’t know what kind of sweet spell she seems to have put upon you and your husband, but she is my stepdaughter, I am her legal guardian. The law is on my side, and even your hotheaded husband knows that he must turn her over to me. I thank you for your hospitality, truly. I thank you for the care of the girl.”

  Just inside the breezeway doors, Teela leaned against the wooden frame, listening to him, her heart thundering.

  She pushed away, running into the parlor and then into the library. The downstairs seemed to be empty.

  She rushed upstairs, running from room to room.

  As Tara had said earlier, the children slept sweetly together. Jennifer lay curled protectively around her baby cousin, Ian. Teela turned and ran from the room, tearing into her own again, running to the balcony and into the room that was always kept ready at Cimarron for James.

  She burst into the hallway, almost colliding with Tara. “Teela, if you’re looking for James, he is gone,” Tara said softly.

  “So quickly—”

  “So angrily. He couldn’t have stayed. He would have strangled your father—”

  “He’s not my father!” Teela cried out, almost sobbing.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Tara said swiftly. “But James had to leave, you understand. Jarrett can order Michael Warren off his own property, but if James was to kill him here, there would be all hell to pay, you know.”

  “I hate him!” Teela cried vehemently.

  “James?” Tara murmured, stunned.

  “My stepfather!”

  “Poor girl!” Tara said softly, and somehow, quite naturally, slipped her arms around Teela and they held tightly for a moment. “I am so very sorry. We can’t refuse when he demands that you come to him, he is your legal guardian. Dear God! I am horrified by the way he treats you. I long to strangle him myself! But it is not illegal, and he is unfortunately within his rights …”

  Teela was silent. She gritted her teeth hard, fighting the urge to burst into desperate sobs. She couldn’t abide Warren anymore; she couldn’t bear to go with him and watch his vicious warfare.

  “You’ll have to get your things together. And don’t worry about James. He’s fought this war and men like your father a very long time.”

  “I caused what happened, I’m afraid,” Teela said miserably. “That he’s gone is all my fault—”

  “Nothing that happened here today was your fault. Nothing. Remember that,” Tara said firmly, setting her away. “And we’ll always be here for you if we can help you. I’ll speak with Jarrett when he has had a chance to calm down—we all play a diplomat’s game here as well—and see if he can convince Warren that you should remain with us. I know that it’s terribly hard for you, but a show of humility often does help. Jarrett knows General Jesup well and has strong influence with him. I’m certain Jesup will have influence with Michael Warren. We will help you, honestly. We’ll do everything that we can, but until then it would be best if you went to him obediently. Somehow we’ll get you back.”

  “He’s a monster!” Teela said miserably.

  “So I’ve witnessed,” Tara agreed. She lifted her hands helplessly, her beautiful blue eyes wide and sympathetic. “But we’ll have to play his game. And best him at it. Just don’t give up. We will find a way if you can be strong and endure.”

  Teela drew away from her. “I’ll get some things together,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to cause your family distress, and God help me, I don’t want battle coming here. I don’t want your family involved, or paying the price for me in any way.”

  “Don’t worry about us; we’re all quite strong,” Tara assured her. “Go ahead, then, ready your belongings. I’ll find Jarrett and speak with him,” Tara promised.

  Teela returned to her room, closing the door behind her. She rushed across the r
oom and found the small velvet purse she had travelled with, dumping it upon the bed to pluck up the money she had left and drop the paper and the coins into her skirt pocket. She wasn’t sure what United States money might do for her here, but there was no sense in leaving it.

  Tara would try to help her. She believed it with all her heart, and she loved Tara for it.

  But no one could help her now. She had to help herself. She could not go with Michael Warren tonight. And she would not throw herself upon the mercy of the McKenzies. She would make sure that they could not be involved; she would disappear.

  She threw open the wardrobe and found her heavy cloak.

  All the while she told herself that she was thinking like an insane woman.

  She couldn’t run away. Not here.

  There was nowhere to go.

  Unless … Into the wilds beyond the house and lawn and fields of Cimarron, there was a deserted village. Tara had told her about it; it wasn’t an endless ride. It existed down a long, overgrown trail, and she would find it.

  Then what? she mocked herself.

  Despite her hatred for Warren, he had kept her and Lilly in pampered, civilized comfort. She had grown up with a personal maid, but she had run the household and all the servants. She had worked hard to keep things in order. She knew how to make soap and candles, how to dye fabric, how to smoke meat and can vegetables. She could embroider beautifully, play the spinet, sing with a passable voice, and mend almost anything.

  She was not equipped to kill her own food and cook it in a wilderness.

  There were alligators out there.

  Snakes. Rattlers in the hammocks, moccasins in the rivers.

  And worst of all, there were Indians out there. Even Indians with names like Alligator and …

  Running Bear.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, praying for courage. She had to get away from Warren. She could not go with him as she had been ordered. She thought that she would rather die.

  She didn’t dare dwell on this any longer. She couldn’t stay with the McKenzies; she couldn’t risk Warren’s anger against them. She had to leave Cimarron and escape, and she didn’t dare spend too much time dwelling on it. She would lose her nerve. And she really wasn’t sure if a snakebite or even losing her scalp could be worse than what her stepfather intended for her.

  She opened the hallway door cautiously as she threw her cape over her shoulders, grateful that though it might get fairly cool at night, she would not face the bitter cold of a frosty South Carolina spring night.

  If the night air did turn chill, it would be the very least of her problems.

  She hurried along the hall and to the stairs. She tiptoed silently down them, then paused in the breezeway hall, listening. Tara and Jarrett were in the library, talking in tones that rose higher and higher.

  “He should be shot! I should have done it myself.”

  “Jarrett, Jarrett! You can’t even think such things. I could not bear it if you were taken from me, no matter how much he might deserve it. We’ve got to try to talk to him. Jarrett, he slapped her. As if he hated her. Really hated her. She slapped him back and he nearly broke her wrist. She barely flinched when he threatened her with something then, but Jarrett, it’s awful! We’ve got to get her from him somehow.”

  “How, Tara, how?”

  “You’ve got to swallow your pride and your hatred for the poor girl’s sake!”

  “She should just marry Harrington and be safe with the man!” Jarrett said impatiently.

  “Perhaps that would be best, and perhaps we can talk her into it. God knows, John was entirely infatuated with her. And if John wasn’t so entirely infatuated, Robert Trent would gladly marry her and rescue her. But we can’t accomplish any such solution tonight. We’ve got to find a way to reason with him and keep her somehow. Jarrett, he’s vicious. He thinks God has given him the right to parent her in any way he sees fit. He’ll beat her, I’m certain of it.”

  Teela heard a long, painful sigh come from Jarrett. “He’s her guardian, I’m afraid he does have the right.”

  “There is no right!” Tara protested. “Jarrett, there is no right in such behavior, you know that—”

  “For the love of God, Tara! Yes, I know that. All right. We’ve an hour. I can try to convince him, but we may well have half the army swarming into the house to wrest her away.”

  “Perhaps not all the men will obey him.”

  “Then the men will suffer for it.”

  “We will have to reason with him.”

  “Tara, my love, I swear to you, I will do my absolute best to reason. I will humble my pride, since you ask it. I will find a way to reason.”

  Teela felt tears sting her eyes; she was so grateful to them both. She didn’t wait to hear any more. She didn’t dare. The last thing she wanted to do was cause trouble for the two people who had been kinder to her than anyone in her life since Lilly had died. And what neither of them knew was that there was no way to reason with Michael Warren.

  She fled past the library, slipping out the rear breeze-way doors and running to the stables. She found the beautiful little roan mare she had ridden that morning in the fourth stall. As quietly as she could, she found the mare’s bridle and slipped it on her. She worked quickly, securing a blanket and saddle next. She was just tightening the girth when she had the uneasy sensation that she was being watched. She turned to the low wooden gate of the stall.

  She was being watched. Jennifer had awakened, and stood there now watching her with her wide amber eyes.

  “You’re running away,” Jennifer said sadly.

  Teela brought a finger to her lips. “Please!” she whispered. “I am running away, I have no choice. My—my father is not a good man like yours. He will not let me stay here, and I am afraid to go with him. I don’t know how to make you understand, but I must go.” She smiled suddenly. “I will miss you very much. I loved being able to play with you and the baby.”

  “I will miss you, too. My father will miss you as well.”

  “Your father—your father is gone.”

  She nodded once again, too painfully aware for her young age. “Yes. Sometimes he must leave very quickly.”

  “This time it was my fault,” Teela admitted to the little girl. “I’m sorry. Very sorry.”

  “It’s all right. I love my father. And he will come back,” Jennifer said with a child’s complete confidence. She raised her hands suddenly, and Teela was surprised to see that she carried a fair-sized wooden canteen. “This is water. Follow the trail to your left all the time, and you will come to the old abandoned cabins. They are strong against the night wind, and the wolves don’t like the human scent that still lingers there.”

  She opened the gate to the stall and offered up the canteen. Teela took it from her, and the little girl slipped her arms around her, hugging her. Teela hugged her tightly in return. “Thank you for the water. I wasn’t even smart enough to realize how much I might need it. I’m very grateful to you.”

  “Well,” Jennifer admitted with a smile, “there is water along the way. But there are snakes as well, and some creeks with alligators. The alligators will not bother you if you leave them be, but you mustn’t disturb the snakes.”

  Teela nodded. “Thank you. I will be very careful, I promise.”

  She drew the mare from her stall and hugged Jennifer one last time. “I will come back, too, you know. To see you. When I can.”

  “I know you will,” Jennifer agreed solemnly. “My father left because of you,” she said. “Are you leaving because of my father?” she asked.

  “I’m leaving because … I’m leaving because I can’t stay here, and because I can’t go back. Do you understand that?”

  Jennifer nodded after a moment. She drew away from Teela’s hug, as if urging her to hurry. “I will tell them you went the other way. Toward Uncle Robert’s,” Jennifer said gravely.

  “Thank you!” Teela said. She leapt up on the roan mare.

 
“Remember, always keep to the left. It is many hours’ ride,” Jennifer said.

  “Thank you, and take care of yourself,” Teela told her. She smiled. The little girl smiled bravely in return. Her eyes were troubled. She had seen too much, and nothing surprised her anymore, and she wasn’t even six years old.

  Teela flicked the reins and started out of the stables. She paused just a second, looking back at the house and praying that she wasn’t being observed from there or from the military ship berthed at Jarrett McKenzie’s dock.

  She nudged her heels against the mare’s flanks. The mare took flight.

  Within minutes, Teela was leaving the house and stables, and then the lawn behind her.

  She had reached the dense growth of trees and foliage where Jarrett’s property ended.

  And where the raw wilderness began.

  She hesitated just briefly. Even the blue of the afternoon sky was darkened by the growth of pines. Her horse’s hoofbeats were muffled by the soft needles that lay so heavily strewn beneath them. The green darkness seemed all but overwhelming.

  Keep to the left, Jennifer had told her.

  Keep to the left …

  She closed her eyes, afraid of all that awaited her. A bird cried out in a sudden lonely screech, and Teela was nearly startled from her horse.

  Snakes …

  Alligators …

  Indians …

  She heard someone shouting from behind her, from somewhere on the McKenzie property.

  She didn’t dare wait to find out who was calling out, or why.

  She squeezed her knees into the mare’s sides. “Hie!” she cried softly to the animal.

  The mare leapt forward, plunging them deeper along the trail.

  And into the heart of the savage land.

  Chapter 9

  Tara burst back in on her husband, who sat at his desk, brooding over the situation. He looked up at her, startled by her wild appearance.

  “She’s gone!”

  “What do you mean, she’s gone?”

  “Gone, not in her room, not with the baby, not upstairs, not downstairs!”

  “She wouldn’t have gone to the ship alone, I don’t think,” Jarrett said slowly. He shook his head. “No, she wouldn’t hurry to his command, of that I am certain.” He rose. “I’ll search outside.”