Comanche Heart (38 page)

“Well, if nothing’s wrong, come on in,” he said, darting another knowing look at Swift.

Amy swept off her shawl and hung it on the rack. Approaching the table, she wiped her hands on her skirts, looking so painfully guilty that anyone save a fool could guess why. Loretta’s blue eyes slid from her cousin to Swift. And then, as if a contagious disease had infiltrated the household, Loretta’s face turned a comely pink. Only Hunter seemed immune. Still grinning, he served four dishes of cobbler, motioning for everyone to take a seat at the table.

All four of them filled their mouths immediately. Swift made an appreciative noise and took a second bite. Loretta, clearly uncomfortable with the lack of pleasantries, glanced up from her plate. “How did those apples I gave you bake up?”

Swift, in the process of swallowing, choked. Everyone, including Amy, turned to watch while he struggled to get his breath. When at last he swallowed and chased the cobbler down with a sip of hot coffee, he managed a shaky, “Excuse me.” Amy began blushing all over again. Hunter’s grin broadened. Loretta looked totally nonplussed.

Hunter met Swift’s gaze. “Are you going to survive that cobbler?”

“It isn’t Loretta’s cobbler.” Swift took another gulp of coffee. “I’m fine. Just went down the wrong pipe, I guess.”

Amy bent her head and attacked the berries on her plate as if she had just declared war. Hunter cleared his throat. “Swift and I stopped by to see Peter on the way home, Amy.”

She glanced up, her eyes darkening, her high color fading, “Did you? And how is he?”

“Fine. I think Swift’s little
talk
with Abe did some good. At least he didn’t go home and raise thunder yesterday, like he might have before.”

“Is Peter’s mother keeping him in bed?”

“And fussing over him like a mother hen,” Hunter amplified. Meeting Amy’s gaze, he asked, “Why did you never come to me about Peter’s problem? As far as I knew, the only time Abe got out of line was back when his wife had him jailed. I had no idea he made a habit of getting drunk and going home mean.”

Amy felt her cheeks growing warm again. “I—” Hunter’s gaze gave her no quarter. She shrugged. “If I had come to you, you would have confronted Abe, and I was afraid you’d get into trouble.”

Hunter’s jaw rippled, “It’s good Indigo has more faith in my judgment. An ornery man is one thing. Abe Crenton has gone far beyond that. It is not the way of the People to turn away when a man abuses his wife and family. You knew that, Amy.”

Amy had witnessed Hunter’s mild reproofs hundreds of times when they were directed at his children, but never before had she been a target. For years she had watched him turn those luminous eyes of his on Indigo or Chase, reducing them to heartfelt remorse without even raising his voice. She had often wondered how he managed that. Now she knew. Hunter, in his kind way, struck much deeper than the flesh; the wounded look in his eyes lashed her heart.

“I meant well,” she said lamely.

His gaze held hers, and without words he spoke with eloquence.

“If it happens again, I’ll come to you,” Amy promised.

Hunter’s gaze slid to Swift. “If Abe does harm again, take your concerns to your husband. It was his strong arm that defended Alice Crenton and her children yesterday.”

Hunter’s reference to Swift as her husband meant that he knew what had transpired between her and Swift last night. But before Amy could react to that, Hunter reached out and grasped her hand, in much the same way that Father O’Grady touched her forehead when he gave her absolution. A feeling of peace spread through her, warm and comforting.

For a fleeting instant Amy wished she had grown up with the Comanches, that she had been raised, not by Henry Masters, but by Hunter’s father, Many Horses, that she could have basked in love and been reprimanded, not with fist or strap, as had been Henry’s way, but with goodness and understanding.

Unlike Amy, Loretta’s children didn’t know fear; they ran wild and free, holding their heads high with pride. Yet, somehow, despite his gentle ways, Hunter ruled his household, instilling in his children all those virtues he deemed important, loyalty, honesty, pride, and courage. Never did he stress obedience, yet it came, naturally and effortlessly, because Hunter’s children loved him far too fiercely to displease him.

Amy’s gaze shifted from Hunter to Swift, who seemed absorbed in eating his cobbler, as did Loretta. Their seeming indifference was yet another custom of the People; one’s shame was his own, and others did not look upon it. Amy glanced back at Hunter to discover that he had picked up his fork, her transgressions already relegated to yesterday.

As if he sensed the moment of chastisement had passed, Swift glanced up and looked straight into her eyes, his own twinkling. An unbidden smile touched her mouth. Unlike her, Swift had been raised Comanche, and Hunter’s ways were his as well. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d be the kind of father Hunter was, unaffected by the noisy chaos in his home, offering direction only when he witnessed a serious transgression, his manner gentle, the reprimand a softly spoken word.

“I wonder where Indigo went after school this time,” Loretta remarked. “I expected her home before now.”

Hunter lifted his head. “She will come.”

“I’ll bet she’s with that Marshall fellow. He’s too old for her, by half. But will she listen to me?”

Amy interrupted to tell them about her confrontation with Indigo the previous afternoon. “I meant to talk with her again later, but the situation with Peter cropped up and I got so caught up in it that I forgot.”

Loretta toyed with her fork. “Lands, I wish she’d send that young man packing. Why would a fellow twenty years old be interested in a girl her age? I can’t like him.”

“She’ll send him packing,” Hunter replied. “Indigo has eyes that see into tomorrow. She has only to open them.”

Swift finished his cobbler and carried his plate to the dish board. Glancing over his shoulder at Amy, he pulled his watch from his pocket. “It’s about time for my school lessons. You ready to head over?”

His eyes danced with mischief, and it didn’t pass her notice that his gaze swept over her in a meaningful way. Amy rose and carried her plate across the room, careful not to look up at him. After ridding herself of the dish, she turned toward the door. “If I spy Indigo, I’ll send her along home, Loretta.”

Loretta smiled. “No, don’t do that. Like Hunter says, she has only to open her eyes. I guess I’ve a bad habit of being overprotective.”

Swift took his hat from the rack. After donning it at a jaunty angle, he pulled down Amy’s shawl and draped it around her shoulders, grazing her neck and then her breasts with his knuckles as he straightened the woolen folds. Breath snagging, Amy lifted startled blue eyes to his. Before another of her telltale blushes could give him away, Swift, chuckling low in his chest, ushered her out the door, fairly certain Hunter hadn’t missed her heightening color and had guessed its cause.

Once on the porch, Amy gathered her shawl close. Swift took her elbow, looking forward to their upcoming
lesson
with lascivious eagerness. He’d be giving her something a little more scandalous to blush about, if he had his way.

“Your cheeks are as red as an overripe apple,” he informed her as they went down the porch steps. “We have to walk the length of town. You want everybody we meet to know what we’ve been up to?”

Her face turned a throbbing scarlet, which set Swift to chuckling again. Placing a hand on her nape, he fingered the silken curls there as he guided her onto the boardwalk.

“How long do you plan to blush every time I look at you?”

“It’s not my fault I have a fair complexion.”

“Why are you so embarrassed?”

Her blue eyes flashed at him. “It isn’t funny.”

Swift threw back his head and barked with laughter.

“Would you stop! People are staring.”

He glanced across the way at Samuel Jones, who was busy sweeping the boardwalk in front of the general store. “Amy, no one’s staring. I’ll tell you right now, shyness is going to last around me about as long as a candle in a windstorm.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s a promise. You can wear those prim little collars buttoned up to your chin in public, but not at home.”

“Just what shall I wear, then?”

“Your apron, if you’re cooking. Otherwise nothing will suit me just fine.”

She threw him a thoroughly horrified look.

“My reading and arithmetic lessons fall into the category of otherwise.”

She quickened her pace, glancing right and left as if she feared someone might have overheard him. Swift grinned, stepping smartly to keep up with her.

“You are an eager little package, aren’t you?”

She nearly tripped over her skirts coming to a halt. Blushing to the roots of her hair, she met his gaze. “You’re deliberately tormenting me. Can’t you be a gentleman, just once, Swift? It’s terribly rude of you to—to talk about it as if you’re commenting on the weather!”

As she spun and once again started down the boardwalk at a busy pace, Swift sauntered along behind her, directing his gaze to the tantalizing sway of her hips. Then, as if a lasso had brought her up short, she froze. Swift glanced up to see what was wrong. Steve and Hank Lowdry had just stepped up onto the boardwalk, several feet ahead of her. Amy backed up, her body rigid. Swift quickened his pace to reach her. When he touched her arm, she pressed close to him.

“It’s all right, honey.”

A shudder coursed through her. “They look like—Who are they?”

Swift looped an arm around her and drew her into a walk, not caring for the moment if the townspeople saw him. “Just a couple of prospectors. Do you want to cross the street?”

“No. I’m not afraid when you’re with me.”

She pressed closer, belying the words. Swift gazed ahead at the two men, finding little comfort in the realization that he wasn’t the only one who thought they looked like comancheros. Evil. The first instant he had seen them, he had sensed it. And now so did Amy.

To Swift’s relief, the two men stepped off the boardwalk onto the street to allow him and Amy to pass. Their spurs chinked in the damp, packed earth. Amy began to shiver. Swift glanced down. Her face, such a brilliant red only moments before, had gone deathly white.

“Wh-why are they here?” She lifted frightened eyes to his. “What could they possibly want in Wolf’s Landing?”

“They came for gold.”

“Hog spittle!” She threw a look at them over her shoulder. “Men like that don’t work for a living.”

“I guess they have as much right to dream as anyone.”

“Don’t you think they look like—” She broke off, as if couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

“Like what, Amy?” Swift helped her step off the end of the boardwalk. “Listen to me. They’ve been here a couple days now. If they were as bad as they look, they’d have already stirred trouble. Hunter visited with them. He said they seemed genuinely interested in finding gold.”

As he finished speaking, the hair on Swift’s nape prickled. He glanced back to see that the two men had stopped in the street. With their hats pulled low, he couldn’t tell if they were looking at him, yet he couldn’t discount his wary reaction. He tightened his arm around Amy and picked up their pace.

“If they aren’t here for gold,” he added, more to himself to her, “then they’re taking a long time to make a move.”

“A move?” Her face drew tight. “You don’t think—Oh, Swift, no. . . . They aren’t gunslingers, are they?”

“Not any I recognize.” The fear in her expression made him wish he hadn’t said anything. He flashed her a slow grin and jostled her with his arm. “Hey, don’t look so gloomy. I’m too suspicious by half. It comes with the territory. I came here for a new start, remember? Let’s not borrow trouble. The likelihood of anybody following me this far from Texas is mighty slim, don’t you think?”

A little color returned to her face. “It is an awfully long way.” A smile curved her lips. “Maybe I’ve just got comancheros on the brain, from keeping company with one.”

He narrowed one eye at her. “I am not a comanchero, never was. If you really thought so, you wouldn’t have made lo—”

She pinched his ribs. “Be a gentleman.”

“I’m no gentleman, either.” He bent his head and nipped her earlobe. “Here in about an hour, I’ll have you convinced of that,” he whispered huskily.

From the corner of his eye, Swift saw movement at the edge of town. He turned in time to spot Indigo slipping off alone into the woods. Amy followed his gaze. “That girl. I’ll give you one guess where she’s headed. I wish she wouldn’t sneak off alone with him like that.”

“Do you think that’s where she’s going, to meet him? She hunts, you know. And when she isn’t hunting, she enjoys walking. She’s got a lot of wildness in her.”

“A little too much wildness for my peace of mind. She’s too sure of herself. She isn’t afraid of anything. That could be dangerous around a young man with no scruples.”

Swift grinned, remembering the knife Indigo wore strapped to her thigh. “My sympathies are all with Brandon if he steps out of line. That girl’s as slick with a knife as any man I’ve ever seen. And I’ll bet she isn’t half bad at fistfighting, either. Having Chase to tussle with has given her spunk.”

“She’s a little slip of a girl, Swift. Brandon’s twice her size.”

“She could handle three of him and never work up a sweat. Stop worrying. Any fellow who takes that girl on is going to bite off a whole lot more than he expected.”

As they walked up the steps of the house, Amy couldn’t resist one last look toward the woods where Indigo had disappeared.

Chapter 21

INDIGO SENSED SHE WAS IN TROUBLE THE MOMENT she entered the clearing. Brandon hadn’t come alone. Three of his friends were with him, and she didn’t like the look in their eyes when they spotted her. She stopped in her tracks.