Apache Fire (5 page)

He had been schooled to wait. Restless prowled his mind and body as the late afternoon slipped away. From the shelter of a shallow cave above, he watched the rain fall on the wooden building that had once housed the agency. As far as he could see across the land in the drizzle, there was no sign of life.

To lessen the risk to both of them, he had sworn he would wait for the cover of darkness to make his presence known to her. To make sure that his visit was kept secret, he had tethered his horse in a grove of oaks, and come the rest of the way on foot.

The damp of the rain did not matter. He had been cold and wet before, but never had the smoke curling from a chimney offered tempting warmth. Lantern light revealed her moving within. He resisted the strong pull that urged him to leave his place and rush down there. It was not for a warrior to be open with his feelings.

When the last of the light was reflected in the puddles below, it was time.

Niko knew the whites' practice of banging a fist upon the door, but it was not his way. He stood before the place she had made her home. “
Iszáń
, will you welcome me?”

Inside, Angie nearly dropped the pan of heated water she was holding. All day she had fought this strange feeling of excitement. To hear his voice, the voice of her dreams, brought one hand up to touch her hair. The other she pressed to still a quick-beating heart.

Lifting the bar from the door, she opened it and peered outside to see him. He stood with legs planted apart, straight and tall, his arms at his sides. She shivered despite the heat of the wood stove, and scanned the area behind him.

“Come quickly, Niko. It is dangerous for you to come here.”

“Do you share your fire with another?”

She repeated the words to herself, and shook her head when she understood his meaning. “There is no one here with me. Please, come inside.”

He was as she remembered, overwhelmingly male, filling her small house with his presence. Gone was the nut brown shirt. He wore the faded gray of rain clouds, tucked into buckskins.

She closed the door and bolted it, then turned to lean against the solid wood, seeing her home through his eyes as he stood and looked around.

Angie felt pride in the trades she had made with her carpetbags and some clothing. It was all she had had left. Her wedding ring and two pairs of earrings had been long gone before she arrived in the territory.

Her needs were few, her wants simple. She cataloged her possessions as he moved to touch them. A pan to heat water, a coffeepot, the frying pan. He picked up the fork and turned it over and over, as he did with the knife and spoon. His finger grazed her single plate and the handle of her cup. They were the sum of her kitchen supplies.

Her gaze followed his to the two windows, bare of curtains, of any covering. On the floor by the small pot-bellied stove was the rag rug she had started fashioning from clothes beyond repair. The shelving she had made was crude boards salvaged from one of the shacks, separated by rocks she had hunted for their flat sides.

She caught a faint smile on his lips as he reached out to touch the two baskets. They had been a gift from Mary Ten Horses. The bucket had been left behind when the agency was moved—another of her finds, which allowed her to draw water.

But he stared the longest at the blanket covering the thick pile of sweet grass that made her bed.

Niko turned to her then, and she bore his darkeyed study with as much calm as she could muster. A most difficult task, she discovered. Her knees felt as if they would give way if she moved, her heart seemed to triple its beat, and the heat of his gaze sent an answering warmth to chase the dreary chill of the night away.

She still wore white woman's shoes, but her skirt fell against the flare of womanly hips. There was no longer the scent of the stiffened layers of clothing that had covered her the first night. She wore no cloth belt, her shirt hung outside the skirt like the Chiricahua women.

“Your hair is as straight as my own.”

“I no longer have the pins to keep it in place. That's what made it curl, Niko.”

“You are changed. There is peace within you.”

“Is that why you've come? To see—”

“I have come to know why you live here.”

Without a tinge of the self-pity she had felt those first few weeks, Angie told him what had happened.

“To be cast out is a grave matter,
iszáń
,” he said when she was done. “There is no one to care for you.”

She stared at the small scar above his eye, the only visible sign she found of his beating. When he rephrased his last words into a question, she stopped musing and answered him.

“I care for myself, Niko. I am learning how, and liking it a great deal.”

“Then you have chosen to walk your path alone?”

“I've not been given a choice. And I've been rude to you. Please, sit upon my blanket, I'll make us tea. Mary has shown me how to collect the right herbs and grasses, and I even have some yucca buds dried for sweetening.”

He sat, because she wished it. The scent of her rose from the sweet grass and the blanket, clouding his senses when he needed them clear. There was much he had to say to her, much more he wished to show her, but that would have to wait. She was eager to show off her new skills, and share with him this home she had made. He could not steal her pleasure in this.

“Mary promised to take me with the women to the mountains when they collect the chokeberries. She said that when summer ends we gather the fruit of the giant cactus, the screwbean mesquite beans that will allow me to have flour, and walnuts.”

Angie knew there were more, but his grunt could have meant anything, including a desire for an end to her chatter. Since the water was already hot, it came to a boil quickly in the coffeepot, and she added small pinches of her supplies to make the tea. When it was done, she no longer had an excuse not to face him. She brought the one cup to him.

“In your house there is but one place to sit, one cup to drink, and one man and one woman. Will you sit and share with me,
iszáń?
”

“Why do you call me
woman?
My name is Angie. Is it hard for you to say?”

“It is the white name for you. I have given you my own.”

Angie sat, because her legs wouldn't hold her any longer. She toyed with covering her shoes with her hem, her back very straight, while she wondered what name he called her.

Her gaze was anxious, so Niko sipped from the cup, finding the tea weak, and much too sweet for him. “It is good. Mary has taught you well.” And for the first time he heard her laugh.

“Niko lies well. Mary said my tea is weak and far too sweet for an Apache.”

“Niko is not Mary Ten Horses.”

She fought the smile coming again to her mouth, and nodded. “Niko can never be Mary Ten Horses. I don't want you to be, but I don't want you to he to me. Tell me why you have come so far. Did you know that my brother has lied about you and set a reward for your capture?”

He sipped again from the cup and handed it over to her. Angie saw that he had turned it for her to drink where his lips had touched. She had never shared an intimacy like this, and his dark gaze compelled her to drink as he had. When she managed to swallow past the lump in her throat, he nodded as if satisfied.

“It is an ugly thing my brother has accused you of.”

“Even with the heat of youth, never have I forced a woman to take me inside her. This thing he says I do brings no pleasure to a man and less to a woman.”

Blushing to the roots of her hair, Angie didn't know where to look. Such frank talk was beyond her.

Seeing how uncomfortable he had made her, Niko took the cup from her hand and set it on the floor beside him. “You have no male for me to talk to. There is no one of your family to bring a gift to. It is for me to speak to you of the feeling I have. Is it the
iszáń
's wish to hear my words?”

Was it? Angie thought of the lonely nights when she dreamed of him, and the mornings when she wondered why. Did she desire him as a woman would desire a man she wanted to have as husband? It was a question she had asked herself many times in the past weeks. But she couldn't lie to herself. There was something between them, unseen, but strongly felt.

His touch was gentle as he lifted her chin so that he could see her face. “The
iszáń
is not pleased to hear that I have feeling for her?”

“I am pleased,” she whispered, holding his intense gaze with her own.

“The grief in your heart is no more?”

“There will always be grief in my heart for the child that I was not strong enough to protect, but I have come to accept that it was not to be. The pain is gone.” She inhaled the scent of the rain on his skin, and felt the fine trembling of his hand, still touching her face. She wanted him to kiss her, and as the need sharpened, she realized that she didn't know if the Apache shared kisses.

Like the sweetest of the ripe wild berries, her mouth tempted him to taste. Niko was thankful he now wore the soft, supple deerskin breechcloth over his buckskins, so that she could not see how the desire for her brought life to his manhood, like a spark to dry tinder.

He moved to touch her, stroking the hair that gleamed like the gold the white man killed to possess. Not once had she looked away from him.

“The man that held the
iszáń
's heart, does he still dwell within?”

There was a hushed delicacy to his voice that wrapped itself around her, soft and warm and gentle, but demanding the truth just the same.

“I cared for him with the first love a young woman gives to a man. The memory remains, faded and cold—”

“Poor comfort when the winter winds blow from the mountains.”

“Just so.” Angie closed her eyes. “It is said that Niko has never taken a wife, though many have approached you with offers.”

He smiled, and his fingers learned the curve of her jaw, the slant of her cheek, the arch of her brow. Her quickened breath became his own, her scent all he knew, as he leaned closer.

“The season had not come for me to choose.” One finger stroked her bottom lip. “I have thought much about the tasting of your mouth with mine. Is this what the
iszáń
wishes me to do?”

Angie once more closed her eyes. “Will you always ask first, Niko?”

“You are Anglo. I am Apache.”

“No. You are a man, and I am a woman. Do the Apache kiss? I have never seen or heard—”

“It is for a man and a woman alone to show. Not for other eyes to see what passes between them.”

“Then show me. I, too, have wondered how your lips would taste to mine.”

From the gentle way he drew her against the heat of his body, Angie expected a tender, chaste kiss.

Niko held her gently, but felt her response, the swelling of her breasts, the quickening of an excited heart, and he kissed her mouth with all the long hunger that had built inside him.

There was fierce pride in his eyes as, with a graceful, quick turn, he brought her to lie beneath him. His hands framed her face, his lips drank her cry, and he felt the hard press of her fingers against his shoulders. Her touch told him of the desire that waited to be claimed. The need in him demanded a joining.

He tempered the unbridled hunger of his kisses till she lay shaken. Slowly he lifted his head, seeing his fine black hair entwined with the golden color of hers. In minutes he could be inside her, gloved in tight warmth, easing the agony of need that prowled his body.

Angie opened heavy lids to see him watching her. “Niko?”

He brushed his mouth over her eyes to close them.

“What's wrong? Please, tell me?”

“I have given you the taste of my lips, and have taken yours to me. For this time, it will be enough.”

His lithe body was gone, taking with it the warmth that had covered her own. She saw him stand, and struggled to brace herself up on one elbow. “You're leaving me?”

“I would honor you.”

“Honor me?”

“I will come for three nights, then you will tell me what is in the
iszáń
's heart.”

He was gone before she understood, gone before she could utter a word.

Niko could not remember a time when he had longed for darkness to come with such impatience. All day he watched over her, smiling when he caught her stopping to search for a sign of him. She would not find any. Long before the sun greeted the new day, he had moved his horse to where no water stood from the rains and the grass grew thick and sweet.

He snared four cottontail rabbits, waiting until the breeze freshened so that the smoke of his fire would be carried high and disappear. He skinned all four, but ate only two. He intended to bring them to her later.

There was much time to think. He remembered running as a boy, his strong legs pumping hard to cover the miles while he carried a mouthful of water. He'd spit it out at the end to prove his strength, then quench his thirst. No water could quench the thirst he had now. No liquid could. His thirst was for her lips, opening beneath his own, granting him the right to plunge his tongue deep inside to imitate the joining they would share.

His hands were not idle. He cleaned and honed his knife, searched for and found wild onions, but his hands longed to touch the curve of her breast and feel the flare of her hips.

And his thoughts took him to an understanding of the steps he was taking. She was an Anglo woman. He was an Apache warrior. There would be no acceptance for her with her people again.

Time after time, his gaze drifted toward the south, toward Mexico. He could take her there. But would she accept his life-path? It was a question lost in the heat of his loins.

Lost, because he made it so.

He was unable to dismiss the thought that she came to him as rain to earth, because this was a thing forbidden to her.

Three nights, he had promised her, and he would keep this promise, too. He would show her that he had honor and would not take the gift of her acceptance of him lightly.

There was a deep depression in stone where he bathed, wishing he had his fine ceremonial buckskins to wear. The breeze dried his hair as he dressed and gathered his gifts of food to bring to her.

Angie was waiting for him outside as dusk hovered. She had bathed and changed her gown, wearing now a pale cream calico with tiny sprigs of leaves scattered over the cloth. Her hair was tied back with a ribbon stolen from her chemise, and she fiddled with it as he walked toward her. There were fluttering feelings in her belly, as if butterflies had taken up residence there.

Niko presented his gifts of food, her smile as shy as an Apache maid's, but warm with welcome. Her female grace enhanced his male strength, and he felt his spirits were smiling with them.

Angie added the rabbits and onions to the jerkedbeef stew she had made, aware of Niko watching her every move. There was a mood set, that of youth and innocence and the sweet time of courting. Excitement flowed in her blood, and, as she turned toward him after washing her hands, his smile made her feel the most beautiful of women.

“Come,
iszáń
, we will walk.”

He did not take her hand, as in the way of the Anglo, but kept his pace even with hers as they walked away from the agency building.

“Tell me of your day.”

Angie glanced at him. “My day passes one to the other with the care of my home, the tasks all women do.” She couldn't ever remember anyone having asked her how she spent her day. But Niko was frowning, as if her answer had not been what he expected. She struggled to recall something special.

“Is there no beauty of the land that brings a smile to your lips?”

“The sun rising does. Each morning I watch the sky painted with colors, and each time it is different, a thing of beauty that I wanted to paint.”

“In the lands of the tall grass that flows like a wide river, there are those who believe the sun is the home of a great spirit. The Apache believe it is not so. For us the sun played a great part when there was fighting between Thunder and Wind. They made floods on the land, and long times of no water. The sun spoke to them. Then they worked together once more to make the land as it should be, green with grass and water that flows for the people.”

There was a peace to be had as dusk deepened, and Angie knew it was from his presence. There were so many things she wanted to know, she wasn't sure what she wanted to ask first.

Niko looked at her then. “
Iszáń
is bright of eye, and quick to smile at Niko. She is happy?”

“She is happy. Niko, tell me how you come to speak English.”

“The black robes taught me. I did this to please one-who-is-not-here.”

She pondered that for a few minutes in silence. Mary had told her that he had lost all of his family but a younger brother. Knowing the Apache fear of ghosts being raised when the names of the dead were mentioned, she assumed he had spoken of his mother.

Touching one hand on her shoulder, Niko stopped her. He sensed he had brought her sadness. He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. “I would see the joy in your face once more.”

“Tell me about you, Niko. What was the boy like? Was he very good?”

“Niko became good. Many times the Clown came to frighten me before seven seasons had turned.”

“The Clown? I do not understand.”

“We hobbled our horses far in the woods. I would sneak off to learn to ride. When I would not come back before dusk, they sent he-who-is-gone dressed as the Clown to frighten me. When I went on my first hunt alone for the deer that numbered ten times the people, he-who-is-gone told me what had been done. Does not the
iszáń
have a thing to frighten the child to obey?”

“A bogeyman. We were warned to stay close to the house and to obey our parents, or the bogeyman would take us away. I used to wake up at night thinking I had heard a noise beneath my bed. I would be afraid to move for fear that he could grab me and take me away.”

“Now you are woman and know that the dark shadows of a child shall be no more. We will return, and
iszáń
will feed me.”

They shared the food from one plate, and Niko, to keep the shadows from her eyes, told her stories of his childhood. Some made her laugh, and he took the smile that curved her lips into a place in his heart. She again made tea, this time a little less sweet, and they shared it in a silence tense with the awareness of each other.

As he had done the night before, he set the cup aside on the floor beside him and drew her close.
Iszáń
, I must know if you come to me because this is a thing that is forbidden to you.”

“Forbidden, Niko?”

“The touching of you brings joy here,” he explained, then lifted one of her hands and touched his forehead. Lowering it to his heart, he pressed her hand against his chest. “Feel how you make the blood quicken,
iszáń
. Here,” he whispered, his dark gaze holding hers as he drew her hand slowly down his chest, and lower still, to curve her fingers beneath his own around his manhood. “This is where you bring a fire to me.”

Her eyes fluttered closed, and she shuddered to know that he wanted her so much. Even through the layers of supple hide, she could feel the heat. The strength. The male power that made her imagine she could feel the lifeblood flowing.

Forbidden? How could this be forbidden? She opened her eyes and looked at his face. His features appeared sharper. His mouth fuller, his eyes black and hot. There was a faint, deeper color to his cheekbones. Angie gazed at their hands, fair and dark, then looked up at him.

“If this is a thing that is forbidden, it is by others. I desire a man who brings me joy here,” she said, lifting his hand with hers and resting it against the side of her head. She held his gaze as steady as he had held hers, drawing his hand down to curve it over her breast. She felt the instant swell of flesh, the hardening of her nipple with this lightest touch from his palm. And she smiled to know that the fine trembling besetting her had hold of him, too.

“Niko is a warrior. But a man who touches me with a gentle hand. There is an empty place inside me that hungers to be filled.”

It took great courage for her to lean closer to him, for she had never initiated a kiss before. But she wanted to with him, for him, needing to show him what words could not.

He shook with the need of her that coursed through him, but held her away. “
Iszáń
, if you accept me as a man, there will be no going back. I would not let you go.”

“There is nothing for me to go back to, Niko. All waits for me… now, with you and the love I need to give….”

All day he had thirsted, and now he quenched himself with kisses that spoke of hunger, of need, of the pleasure her words brought him. The sweet grass beneath the blanket rustled and released its faint scent as he lay back and drew her to lie upon him. And with the gentleness she seemed to want, he cradled her face between his callused hands and slowly drew her head down to his.

Her mouth was soft and hungry, mating with his. For a moment he feared the power of her as she pressed the fullness of her breasts against his chest, the whole of her body straining against him. He stroked her spine, then cupped her buttocks with his hands, bringing the soft heat of her womanhood to cradle that which made him male.

He meant to be gentle. Her small, wild sounds drove him toward a savage need. Anglos had named him
savage
, and he felt one now. Hot. Powerful. Male.

Her mouth touched his neck, her teeth caught the lobe of his ear. He courted the wildness he sensed, returning each kiss, each nip that brought pleasure and the pain of denial. Niko rolled her beneath him, a primitive moan escaping his lips as his mouth trailed to her throat, kissing her flesh, then biting, soothing and hurting before his mouth once more sought hers. He plunged his tongue deeply, withdrawing, then again claiming the warmth and rich taste of her. Soon he would make the same claim upon her body.

His hands rose to tangle within the long length of her hair, holding her head still. He plundered the sweet giving of her lips, branding them his, as he branded upon his mind the sighs and moans he called forth from her.

She was soft where he was hard. Despite the weight of his body on hers, she writhed against him, the soft noises she made exciting him. Even in this, the first joining of a man and a woman, the
iszáń
of the Chiricahua did not respond with abandon.

Niko felt the trembling of his body, on fire as she arched her hips. He lifted himself to one side, running a hand over her breast and hip, curving his fingers over her breast to lift her nipple to his mouth.

She cried his name, lost in a whirlwind of sensations as if the wind had caught her up and spun her around and around, always bringing her nearer to the heat of the sun.

Even through the cloth of gown and chemise, she felt the intense wet heat of his mouth suckling her. She knew it was not the sun that scorched her skin, but Niko.

Abruptly, he was gone. She opened her eyes to find him standing above her, his chest moving with his harsh breaths. Her own were heaving pants. “Why?” The one word was all she could whisper.

“Come to me,
iszáń
. Without shame.”

It took seconds to understand, for he was already stripping off his headband and shirt, unwinding the cloth belt, then removing his breechcloth. She rose and stood there on unsteady legs, forcing her hands to open the buttons on her gown. And as she watched him bare his flesh to her, so, too, did he watch her.

“Do you know the courage you ask of me to do this?”

“I know.”

Angie stepped out of the gown pooled at her feet and bent to lift it up. Niko was beside her to take it.

“Do you know the pleasure you are for my eyes,
iszáń
?”

“Am I, Niko? I want to be.”

He caught her chin with one hand and stayed the hand she raised to untie the ribbon holding the neckline of her chemise.

“You are pleasure only for my eyes. Never will another see you. I will make you Niko's
iszáń
this night. First I tell you I had already claimed you in my heart the day your brother struck you.” He placed his fingertips over her lips to silence her. “Do not ask what I cannot answer.”

His lips touched the flesh of her throat, finding the pulse that beat with a wild call of its own. His teeth caught the end of the ribbon, and he pulled the tie free. With the rolled tip of his tongue, he opened the knot and nuzzled aside the cloth that hid her from his eyes.

Before she could hold him, he dropped to one knee and removed his moccasins. And there he remained, waiting and watching as the soft, sheer cotton slid down her body to fall to the floor.

He rose, and she touched his smooth, hairless bronze chest. The move was a bold one for her, but not more so than the bold way her gaze searched his flesh, noting the scars of a warrior. His manhood rose proud between his powerful, muscled thighs, and her eyes flew to his.

Niko grinned at her look, and held his hand out to her. “Come lie with me. I will show you how we fit without pain.” And when he had her beneath him, he whispered, “Like the knife slides easily into the sheath that was made for its blade alone, so will we join. Never again will an Anglo bring pain to my
ishton
. I would kill not to have it so.”

“No death, Niko,” she murmured, reaching for him as he brought his lips to her breast. “I want only life. Yours. Mine. Fill the empty places of my heart.”

Swollen flesh sent her arching up to his hand. She cried out moments later. He drank the cries of her pleasure, filled her heart and mind with his praise. He held back longer than he thought he could as he made a place for himself between the pale skin of her thighs.

“Watch,
iszáń
,” he demanded, his voice husky with the need that tore through him. “Watch as we join, and no man can part.”

She watched until passion sent her head thrashing from side to side. Niko was the sun, setting fire to the earth, quenched with the spill of life till the embers flamed anew.