Hostage to Thunder Horse
Elle James
Discovering an unconscious woman in a snowdrift, rancher Maddox Thunder Horse vowed to save her life.How she had wound up in a remote area of the Badlands was a mystery, but the fear in the icebound beauty's eyes revealed that it had not been by choice. The woman who called herself Kat roused protective instincts the Lakota native had thought long-dead…. Grateful for her rescue, Katya Ivanov didn't want to pull Maddox into her nightmare.Someone wanted her dead, so the less he knew about her and her situation, the better. Still, the growing attraction between them couldn't be denied - and neither could the killer who lurked in wait. But with a warrior by her side, she just might have a shot at the life - and love - she'd always wanted….
“You’re staying where I can keep an eye on you.”
Maddox scooped her in his arms and deposited her in the middle of the mattress.
“Someone was prowling around outside the house. Care to enlighten me as to who it might be? No more lies. I want the truth.”
She stared up at him, her eyes an icy blue, glistening with unshed tears. “I am telling you the truth. I do not know who is after me.”
“You aren’t telling me everything.”
“I’ve told you what I can.”
He turned away, afraid that if he continued to stare at her, he’d do something stupid—like take her in his arms and make love to her.
“I suspect you’re a whole lot of trouble and we’ve only just scratched the surface.” Tomorrow he had to convince her to trust him…if being next to her tonight didn’t drive him crazy with need.
Hostage to Thunder Horse
Elle James
This book is dedicated to my new grandson, whose arrival into this world was the best incentive to get this book written. Happy Birthday, Cade!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Golden Heart winner for Best Paranormal Romance in 2004, Elle James started writing when her sister issued a Y2K challenge to write a romance novel. She managed a full-time job, raised three wonderful children and she and her husband even tried their hands at ranching exotic birds (ostriches, emus and rheas) in the Texas Hill Country. Ask her, and she’ll tell you what it’s like to go toe-to-toe with an angry 350-pound bird! After leaving her successful career in information technology management, Elle is now pursuing her writing full-time. She loves building exciting stories about heroes, heroines, romance and passion. Elle loves to hear from fans. You can contact her at ellejames@earthlink.net or visit her website at www.ellejames.com.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Maddox Thunder Horse—Lakota Indian and North Dakota rancher, whose love of the wild horses of the Badlands leads to a winter rescue that turns into a long-term commitment to save a desperate woman.
Katya Ivanov—A princess framed for terrorism, on the run from law enforcement officials and a paid assassin.
Sheriff William Yost—The sheriff the Thunder Horse men despise for the slipshod investigation of their father’s death.
Richard Fulton—A shadowy criminal who has eluded authorities for a long time.
Tuck Thunder Horse—Maddox’s younger brother, the Federal Park Ranger in charge of protecting the North Dakota Badlands and its herds of wild horses.
Dante Thunder Horse—Maddox’s brother, and helicopter pilot for the North Dakota branch of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Pierce Thunder Horse—Maddox’s older brother, the one who left North Dakota to pursue a career in the FBI.
Dmitri Ivanov—Katya’s brother, missing in Africa, next in line for the throne of Trejikistan.
Vladimir Ivanov—Katya’s cousin, who covets the throne of Trejikistan and resents its move toward democracy.
Amelia Thunder Horse—Mother to the Thunder Horse men, who lost her husband to a freak riding accident.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter One
He’d gained ground in the last hour, bearing down on her, the relentless adversary wearing at her reserves of energy. The cold seeped through her thick gloves and boots, down to her bones.
Alexi Katya Ivanov revved the snowmobile’s engine, thankful that the stolen machine had a full tank of fuel. Regret burned a hole in her gut. Somehow she’d find the owners and repay them for the use of their snowmobile. She’d never in her life stolen anything. In this case, necessity had forced her hand. Steal or die.
She’d ditched her car several hours after crossing the border into North Dakota, and she was tired of wincing every time a law enforcement vehicle passed by. But she didn’t know where to go. She’d only lived in Minneapolis since she’d been in the States. Instinct told her to get as far away from the scene of the crime as she could get.
Throughout the night, she’d pushed farther and faster, praying that she wouldn’t be pulled over for speeding. Not until Fargo did she realize that the headlights following her hadn’t wavered since she’d left Minneapolis. Butterflies wreaked havoc in her belly—whether they were paranoia or intuition, she didn’t care. Her gut told her that whoever had framed her as a terrorist had also set a tracking device on the body of her car. How else had he found her and kept up with her through the maze of streets in the big cities?
She’d stopped once and taken precious time to search the exterior, but the snow-covered ground kept her from a thorough investigation of the undercarriage. Thus her need to ditch the car and find alternate means of transportation. Out in the middle of nowhere North Dakota, rental cars were scarce, if not impossible to find, not to mention they required a credit card to secure. She hadn’t used a credit card since…Katya twisted the handle, gunning the engine. She refused to shed another tear. The bite of the icy wind was not nearly as painful as the ache in her heart. Her beloved father was dead. An accident, according to the news, but she’d gotten the truth from one of his trusted advisors back in Trejikistan. He’d been gunned down by an assassin while driving to their estate in the country.
Immediately after hearing the news of her father’s death, Katya had been attacked in front of her apartment building. If not for the security guard she’d befriended, Katya would be dead. The same guard had hidden her from the attacker and let her know that the police had been to her apartment, claiming she’d been identified as a suspected terrorist. They’d found weapons and bomb-making materials there. Things that hadn’t been there when she’d left to go to church earlier that day, hoping to find some solace over her father’s death. The guard hadn’t believed her capable of terrorism. Thank God.
On the run since then, she’d avoided crowded places, sure that someone would recognize her from the pictures plastered all over the local and statewide television.
She’d taken her car, switched the license plate with that of some unsuspecting person and driven out of Minneapolis as fast as she could.
Something slammed into the snowmobile, shaking her back into the present. A glance behind her confirmed her worst suspicions. The man following her had a gun aimed at her. For as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but gently rolling, wide-open terrain without trees, rocks or buildings to hide behind. The best she could hope for was to stay far enough ahead of the gunman to duck behind another hill. As her snowmobile topped a rise, another shot tore into the back of the vehicle.
Ducking low, she gunned the engine and flew over the top of the hill.
The ground fell away from beneath her, as the snowmobile plunged down a steep incline.
Katya held on, rocks and gravel yanking the skids back and forth during the descent into a rugged river-carved canyon. With each jarring bump, her teeth rattled in her head. Her hands cramped with the effort to steer the machine to the bottom. No snow graced the barren rocks, giving the snowmobile’s skids little to grab onto. The rubber tracks flung gravel and rocks out behind her.
Katya couldn’t worry about bullets from the man following her. It was all she could do to live through the ride.
With a bone-wrenching thump, Katya reached the river bank. She couldn’t believe she’d made it. She wanted nothing more than to throw herself on the ground and hug the earth.
Bullets pinged off the rocks beside her, forcing her back into survival mode. She raced the snowmobile along the riverbank, aiming for the bluff that would block the bullets. The machine ran rough, the tracks slipping on the icy surface, getting less traction than needed.
With the shooter perched on the hillside, Katya was a prime target to be picked off. If only she could make it to the bend, her attacker would have to stop shooting long enough to follow.
Hunched low in her seat, she urged the hard-used machine across the snow and gravel. A hundred yards from the bend in the river and the reassuring solid rock of the canyon wall, it chugged to a halt.
Katya hit the start switch. Nothing happened. Bullets spit snow and gravel up around her. Katya flung herself from the seat to the rocky ground, crouching below the snowmobile. A bullet pierced the cushioned seat, blowing straight through and nicking the glove on her hand.
At the shooter’s angle, the snowmobile didn’t give Katya much protection. If she wanted to stay alive long enough to see another day, she’d have to make a dash for the canyon wall, where she hoped to find a place to hide among the boulders.
As if on cue, the snow thickened and the wind blasted it across the sky. She couldn’t see the top of the canyon wall. And if she couldn’t see all the way to the top, whoever was up there wouldn’t be able to see her. Sucking in a deep breath, Katya took off, running upstream toward the bluffs.
The wind blew against her, making her progress slow, despite her all-out effort to reach cover. But once she was around the bend, the force of the wind slackened.
Katya hid among the rocks, bending double to catch her breath.
Her ride down the canyon wall had been nothing short of miraculous. Would the shooter make a similar attempt? Katya doubted anyone in his right mind would. Which meant he’d have to dismount and leave his machine at the top in order to come down and find her.
Without the snowmobile, she didn’t know how she’d find her way back to civilization, but she could only solve one major problem at a time. Her temporary respite from being a target was only that. Temporary. In order to stay alive, she had to keep moving.
As she wove her way through the boulders and rocks, the wind picked up, the snow lashing against her cheeks, bitter cold penetrating the layers of GORE-TEX and thermal underwear beneath. Her feet grew numb and her hands stiff. At this rate, a bullet was the least of her worries.
The cold would kill her first.
MADDOX THUNDER HORSE topped the rise and stared down into Mustang Canyon to the narrow ribbon of icy-cold river running through the rugged terrain. He’d tracked Little Joe’s band of mares to the valley below, worried about Sweet Jessie’s newborn foal. Full-grown wild horses normally survived the harsh North Dakota winters without problems. But a newborn might not be so lucky. Temperatures had plunged fast, dropping from the low forties to the teens in the past three hours. With night creeping in and the snow piling up, Maddox couldn’t look for much longer or he might be caught in the first blizzard of the season.
The handheld radio clipped just inside his jacket gave a static burst. “Maddox?”
Maddox fumbled to unzip the jacket just enough to grab the radio and press the talk button. “Whatcha got, Tuck?”
“I got nothing here in South Canyon. How about you?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s past time we headed back. The weatherman missed the mark on this one. Wankatanka grows angrier by the minute.” Tuck attributed every change in weather to the Great Spirit.
The Bismarck weather report had called for snow flurries, not a full-blown blizzard. But Maddox had tasted the pending storm in the air. He understood this land and the weather like his ancestors, the equally rugged Lakota tribe who’d forged a life on the Plains long before the white man came. He’d felt the heaviness in the air, the weight of the clouds hanging over the canyons. Maddox knew if they were to find the horses, they’d have to hurry.
“See ya back at the ranch.” Maddox clipped his radio to the inside of his jacket and zipped it back in place. Gathering his reins, he half turned his horse when movement near the river below caught his attention. With the snow falling steadily and the wind picking up, he had almost missed it. Maddox dug out his binoculars and pressed them against his eyes, focusing on the narrow valley below. Were Little Joe and his band of mares hunkering down in the canyon until the storm blew over?
Bear, the stallion he’d rescued five winters before, shifted beneath him from hoof to hoof, his nostrils flaring as if sensing the storm’s building fury. Bear didn’t like getting caught in snowstorms any more than Maddox did. The horse had almost frozen to death that winter Maddox and his fiancée, Susan, had been trapped in a raging blizzard. Bear had made it back alive. Susan hadn’t.
Maddox peered through the blowing snowflakes to the bend in the river. His gaze followed the line of the waterway as it snaked through the canyon.
As a member of the Thunder Horse family, Maddox had grown up living, breathing and protecting the land he and his ancestors were privileged enough to own. Over six thousand acres of canyon and grassland comprised the Thunder Horse Ranch where the Thunder Horse brothers raised cattle, buffalo and horses. They farmed what little tillable soil there was to provide hay and feed for the animals through the six months of wicked North Dakota winter. For the most part, the rest of the land remained as it was when his people roamed as nomads, following the great buffalo herds.
Maddox loved the solitude and isolation of the Badlands. He’d only been away during his college days and a four-year tour of duty in the military. The entire time away from Thunder Horse Ranch he longed to be home again. The Plains called to him like a siren to a sailor, or more like a wolf to his own territory.
Now it would take an extreme change in circumstance to budge him from the place he loved, no matter what sad memories plagued him in the harsh landscape. Time healed wounds, but time never diminished his love for this land.
As his gaze skimmed the banks of the river, he passed over a flash of apple red. Orange-red and blood red he’d expect, like the colors of Painted Rock Canyon, but not bright, apple red. He eased the binoculars to the right, backing over the spot. Squinting through the lenses, he tried adjusting the view to zoom in. A white bump near the river’s edge caught the blowing snow, creating a natural barrier quickly collecting more of the flakes. On the end of the drift, a red triangle stood out, but not for long. The snow thickened, dusting the red, burying it in a blanket of white.
Poised on the edge of a plateau, Maddox weighed his options. He hadn’t found the mares and he still had an hour’s ride back to the ranch house. If he dropped off the edge of the plateau to investigate the snowdrift and the red item buried in white powder beside it, he could add another hour to his journey home. In so doing, he risked getting stuck out in the weather and possibly freezing to death.
Instinct pulled at him, drawing him closer to the edge of the canyon, urging him to investigate. He rarely ignored his instinct, following his gut no matter how foolhardy it seemed. His army buddies called it uncanny, but it had saved his life on more than one occasion in Afghanistan.
No matter how cold and dangerous the weather got, if he didn’t go down and investigate, curiosity and worry would eat away at him. He might not get the opportunity to return to investigate for days, maybe months, depending on the depth of the snow and how long the ground remained frozen.
With gloved fingers, Maddox tugged the zipper on his parka up higher, arranging the fur-lined collar around his face to block out the stinging snow now blowing in sideways.
He nudged Bear toward the edge of the plateau.
As they neared the dropoff, Bear danced backward, rearing and turning.
Maddox smoothed a hand along Bear’s neck, speaking to him in a soothing tone, soft and steady over the roar of the prairie wind. “Easy, Mato cikala.” Little Bear.
Bear reared up and whinnied, his frightened call whipped away in the increasing wind. Then he dropped to all four hooves and let Maddox guide him down the steep slope into the valley below. With the wind and snow limiting his vision, Maddox eased the horse past boulders and rocky outcroppings devoid of vegetation until the ground leveled out on the narrow valley floor. He urged the horse into a canter, eager to check out the mysterious red object and get the heck back to the ranch and the warm fire sure to be blazing in the stone fireplace.
His gaze fixed on the lump on the ground, Maddox pulled Bear to a halt and slipped out of the saddle. His boots landed a foot deep in fresh powder, stirring the white stuff up into the air to swirl around his eyes.
As he neared the snowdrift, the red object took shape. It was the corner of a scarf.
His heart skipped a couple beats and then slammed into action, pumping blood and adrenalin through his veins, warming his body like nothing else could.
He bent to brush away the snow from the lump on the ground, his fingers coming into contact with denim and a parka. His hands worked faster, a wash of unbidden panic threatening his ability to breathe. The more snow he brushed away, the more he realized that what had created the snowdrift was, in fact, a woman, wrapped in a fur-lined parka, denim jeans and snow boots. Her face, protected somewhat from the wind had a light dusting of snowflakes across deathly pale cheeks, sooty brows and lashes.
Maddox grabbed his glove between his teeth and pulled it off, digging beneath the parka’s collar to find the woman’s neck. He prayed to the Great Spirit for a pulse.
An image of Susan lying in his arms, hunkered beneath a flimsy tarp, while gale-force winds pounded the life out of the Badlands, flashed through his mind. This woman couldn’t be dead. He wouldn’t let her die. Not again. Not like Susan.
With wind lashing at his back and the snow growing so thick he could barely see, he didn’t feel a pulse. He moved his fingers along her neck and bent his cheek to her nose. At last, a faint pulse brushed against his fingertips and a shallow breath warmed his cheek.
Relief overwhelmed him, bringing moisture to his stinging eyes. He blinked several times as he tightened the parka’s hood around the woman’s face and lifted her into his arms.
Too late to make it back to the ranch, he had to find a place to hole up until the storm passed. Being out in the open during a blizzard was a recipe for certain death. As he carried the woman toward his horse, he made a mental list of what he’d packed in his saddlebag.
This far into the winter season, he’d come prepared for the worst. Sleeping bag, tarp, two days of rations and a canteen. Trying to get the woman back to the ranch wasn’t an option. Just getting out of the canyon would take well over an hour. Two people on one horse climbing the steep slopes was risky enough in clear weather. He couldn’t expose the unconscious woman to the freezing wind. He had to get her warmed up soon or she’d die of exposure.
Maddox remembered playing along this riverbank one summer with his father and brothers. They swam in the icy water and explored the rock formations along the banks. If his memory served him well, there was a cave along the east bank in the river bend. He remembered because of the drawings of buffalo painted along the walls. He carried the woman along the river’s edge, clucking his tongue for Bear to follow.
The stallion didn’t look too pleased, tossing his head toward home as if to say he was ready to go back now.
The wind pushed Maddox from behind and for the most part he shielded the woman with his body. He crossed the river at a shallow spot, careful to step on the rocks and not into the frigid water. He couldn’t get wet, couldn’t afford to succumb to the cold.
The blizzard increased in intensity until he trudged through a foot and a half of snow in near-whiteout conditions. Maddox stuck close to the rocky bluffs rising upward to the east, afraid if he stepped too far from the painted cliffs, he’d lose his way. Bear occasionally nudged him from behind, reassuring him that the stallion was still there.
After several minutes stumbling around in the snow, Maddox thought he’d gone too far and might have missed the narrow slit in the wall of the bluff. A lull in the wind settled the snow around him, revealing a dark slash in the otherwise solid rock wall.
The entry gaped just wide enough for him to carry the woman through. Once the ceiling opened up and he could hear his breathing echo off the cavern walls, he inched forward into the darkness until he found the far wall. There he scuffed his boot across the floor to clear any rocks or debris before he laid her down in the cavern.
With little time to spare, he hurried back out into the storm to lead Bear out of the growing fury of the blizzard. As darkness surrounded them, Bear tugged against the reins, at first unwilling to enter the tight confines, his big body bumping against the crevice walls. When the cave opened up inside, the horse stopped struggling.
Running his hand along the horse’s neck and saddle, Maddox focused his attention on survival—both his and the stranger’s. If the woman had a chance of living, she had to be warmed up quickly. Although protected from the blizzard’s fury, the cold would still kill them if he didn’t do something fast. Once he came to the lump behind the saddle, he stripped off his gloves, blowing warm air onto his numb fingers.
Leaving the saddle on the horse for warmth, Maddox worked the leather straps holding the sleeping bag in place. Once free, he laid it at his feet on the cave floor. Next, he loosened the saddlebag straps and pulled it over the horse’s back. Inside the left pouch, he kept a flashlight. His chilled fingers shook as he fumbled to switch it on.
Light filled the small cavern. The walls crowded in on him more so than he remembered from when he was a child. About half the size of the Medora amphitheater, the cave would serve its purpose—to shield them from the biting wind and bitter cold of the storm.
Without wood to build a roaring fire, they would have to rely on the sleeping bag and each other’s body warmth—hers being questionable at the moment.
Maddox set the flashlight on a rock outcropping, untied the strings around the sleeping bag and unzipped the zipper. He placed the open sleeping bag next to the woman. He had to get her out of the bulky winter clothing and boots and inside the sleeping bag.
Time wasn’t on his side. He didn’t know how long the woman had been unconscious or whether she had frostbite. Maddox stripped his coat off and the heavy sweatshirt beneath, wadding it up to form a pillow. Then he tugged his jeans off and the long underwear until he stood naked, regretting his lack of boxer shorts. The frigid air bit his skin, raising gooseflesh everywhere.
He went to work undressing the stranger, removing layer after layer. When he tugged off her jeans, she moaned.
That was a good sign. She wasn’t completely comatose. Hope burned in his chest as he swiftly finished the job of undressing her down to her bra, panties and the pendant she wore around her throat. Nowhere in her pockets could he find any form of identification. He shoved all their clothing to the bottom of the bag, then laid the woman on the quilted flannel interior.
Tucked inside the sleeping bag, she didn’t shake the way most cold people did. Her body had given up trying to keep her warm. The lethargy of sleep had numbed her mind to the acceptance of a peaceful death.
Maddox’s body fought to live, his teeth chattering in the cool of the cave’s interior. He refused to let the sleep of death claim her, as it had Susan.
Before he lost all his body warmth, he slid into the sleeping bag beside the woman and zipped the edges together. Although the bag was made for one large person, he was able to close both of them inside with a little room to spare. He wrapped his arms around her body, rubbing his hands up and down her cold arms and tucking her feet between his calves to warm them.
Cold. She was so cold.
Susan’s face swam before him, her lips blue, her tawny blond hair buffeted by the wind, the only movement on her lifeless form. For a moment his world stood still as he stared down into the quiet countenance, the blank stare of his dead fiancée intruding into his thoughts.
But that was years ago. This woman wasn’t Susan. For the first time since he’d found her, he studied the woman, blocking out the sad memories. In the shadowy glow of the flashlight, he leaned back enough to stare at the woman so near death he was afraid he might already be too late.
Dark hair, as black as his own, splayed across his gray sweatshirt pillow in large loose waves. Sooty, narrow brows winged outward in sharp contrast to her pale, almost translucent skin. Her hair dipped to a shallow peak at the center of her forehead and her lashes lay like fans across her cheeks. A pointed chin, perky nose and delicate ears completed her perfection.
As close as he was, Maddox caught a whiff of a subtle yet exotic perfume. His breath caught in his throat. This stranger didn’t have Susan’s girl-next-door fresh looks, yet her ethereal beauty was so profound it sucked the wind right out of his lungs, his groin tightening in automatic response to her skin against his. He hadn’t been drawn to any woman since Susan’s death. He hadn’t let himself be, his burden of guilt weighing heavily.
The woman in the sleeping bag with him was a stranger. A beautiful, exotic stranger with skin the color of a porcelain doll and hair softer and silkier than anything he’d ever run his hands through.
He forced himself to focus on anything other than her physical attributes, shifting to all the unknowns, the mystery and reasons he shouldn’t trust her. He didn’t know her, she hadn’t carried a driver’s license or passport. He didn’t know her background.
Who the hell was she? Would she live to tell him?
Chapter Two
Kat snuggled closer to the warmth in front of her, nestling her face into the hard, yet smooth surface. Her nose twitched and she slid her hand between her and the warmth-providing pillow, to brush her hair out of her face.
She couldn’t move far with what felt like a tree branch draped across her back, holding her close and adding to the warmth. What was keeping her from moving? She opened her eyes to discover the source of her imprisonment.
Darkness so intense she couldn’t see a scrap of light made her close her eyes and open them again. Was she dead? Panic shot through her like a lightning bolt. Had she gone blind? She shoved against the hard surface beneath her hands. The band around her waist shifted, tightening.
She pushed up on her hands, straining against the band. “Help.” Her voice echoed as if in one of the large cathedrals of her homeland. “Where am I?” She fought to contain her terror. She had managed to stay alive based on sheer tenacity and by relying on her intelligence for the past two days. She couldn’t give up now. But why was it so incredibly dark? Where was she?
“Shh.” A deep baritone rumbled in the darkness, the surface beneath her hands vibrating. Then she was rolled to her side. She recognized the band around her middle now as an arm as thick as a small tree trunk.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. Had he caught up with her? Was she his prisoner? “Who are you? Where am I? Am I blind?” Her hip brushed against what could only be a man’s… “Oh my god, you’re not wearing any clothes!” She pounded against his chest, her feet banging against his shins.
“Slow down.” The voice rumbled again, bouncing off the walls of the room they were in. “I’m not going to rape you, woman. Let me turn on the light.”
With his one arm still holding her around her middle, he reached above his head. Cold air slipped across her skin, sending wave after wave of chills over Katya. She shook so hard her teeth rattled against each other.
Metal clinked against stone, then a click, and light bounced off what looked like rock walls.
Relief filled her as her eyes adjusted to the muted lighting. She wasn’t blind. Light beamed across the room, dispelling the terrifying darkness. Then as quickly as the relief filled her it fled. She couldn’t move, trapped against the man’s chest and cocooned in a bag. Panic threatened to overwhelm her, but she fought it, taking deep, steadying breaths.
The man’s other arm slipped back into the interior of the bag, pulling the gap closed, blocking the chilled air from leaking inside.
Despite her terror at being held captive, she didn’t want to die of exposure. Until she learned more about the man she lay next to, she’d do well to appreciate the warmth and gather her strength if she had to fight for her life.
“How do you feel?” the man asked.
“Cold. Incredibly cold. And frankly, a little scared.”
“You should be scared, but not of me. You almost died of exposure. You’ll probably feel cold for a long time.”
Her teeth chattered as she tried to form questions. “What happened? Why are we in this bag together?”
“I found you under a snowdrift by the river and brought you here to warm you. I only had one bag, so you had to share with me.”
Her face burned. She stared around at the rock walls surrounding her. “Where are we?”
“In a cave.”
“In what country?”
The man frowned. “The U.S., of course.” No of course about it. She’d been racing across the country for two days, never on a straight route, always varying her direction, hoping to shake the man following her. If the man currently holding her captive was one of the people after her, they could be practically anywhere. She took a deep breath before asking her next questions. “Who are you? Who do you work for?”
“Uh-uh.” He shook his head. “You’ve been asking all the questions. It’s my turn. Who are you?” His deep, resonant voice filled the inside of the cave with its ruggedness.
Katya hesitated. His avoidance of her question didn’t set her mind at ease. She didn’t know who she was dealing with and trusted no one with her identity. Especially after what had happened in Minneapolis. She’d been on the road ever since, until she’d been forced to ditch her car and steal a snowmobile. “Am I still in the Badlands?”
“Yes, ma’am. The Badlands of North Dakota, to be exact.”
“My name is Kat,” she said tentatively. At least she wasn’t lying. Kat was only part of her name, but people she’d gone to school with in Minneapolis had used it as her nickname. “Kat Evans.” Evans was an out-and-out lie. Hard lessons had taught her not to give out truth until she knew where she stood. Especially with the colossal accusation of terrorism hanging over her. Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, the FBI and every law enforcement agency would be on the lookout for her.
She squirmed against his body, extremely aware of her bare skin rubbing against his bare skin. He was completely naked and she was practically naked herself, except for her bra and panties. “Oh, my!” She tried to scoot away from him, hampered by the close confines of the bag they both occupied. A waft of icy air scraped across her body and she found herself pressing against his skin to re-create the warmth she’d felt a moment before.
“Sorry. You weren’t awake for me to ask permission. In these temps, skin to skin is best to bring up body temperature the fastest. Yours was bordering on death.”
After straining for a minute to keep from leaning into his chest, she gave up and let her cheek rest against the hard muscles of his smooth chest. “Well, then, I guess I should thank you for saving my life.”
He chuckled. “Please, don’t strain yourself with your gratitude.”
With nowhere else to put her hands, she rested them against his chest, her fingers smoothing over the hard planes, liking his laughter and the contours of his muscles way too much. “Point made. I am grateful you did not leave me out there to die.” She settled into the warmth of his arms, awkward about their nakedness, but too cold to climb out of the bag.
“You’re welcome.” He rested his chin on the top of her hair, a position both comforting and intimate. “Nothing like waking up in the dark with a stranger, huh?”
“Precisely.”
“What were you doing out by the river on foot?”
She swallowed, hating that she had to lie to the man who’d saved her from freezing to death, but she had no other choice. “I was out snowmobiling and my snowmobile broke down.”
The man stiffened. “What about the others in your party? Most tours stick together.”
“I got separated. I drove around for a couple hours…trying to find them. That is when my machine quit on me.” Her words came out in a rush as the lie grew bigger. What if he didn’t believe her? What if he was the man who’d been after her and he was just fishing for more information? She couldn’t let on that she was Katya Ivanov, just in case he really didn’t know. Surely the entire United States had been alerted to a possible terrorist at large.
“I didn’t see a snowmobile.” His voice had hardened, as though he didn’t really believe or trust her.
“I followed the river to see if I could find help. I suppose the snowmobile is a mile or so downstream from where you found me.” She had hoped to hide it among the boulders, but had to abandon the heavy machine where it had come to a grinding and permanent halt, in order to save herself from a shooter’s aim.
“The closest town to us is Medora and I don’t recall anyone there offering snowmobile tours.”
“It was a special tour out of…” she grasped for the name of a larger town in North Dakota. “Bismarck!” she said in a rush. How much bigger could the lie grow? And would she be able to remember all the details?
“Still, most tours wouldn’t leave a rider behind.”
“I am sure the weather cut them short on searching for me. I will bet they notified the authorities as soon as they got back. Assuming they did not get stranded too.” Kat couldn’t look into his eyes. Lying didn’t come naturally to her, one reason she could never be a good politician. The question was: Did this man believe any of the lies she had just dished out?
“So really, who are you?” he asked, answering her question. “Kat Evans isn’t right. You speak English too proper to have been born in America, and I detect an accent.”
She stiffened against him. Like it or not, she couldn’t tell him the truth. Not until she unraveled the mess her life had become. “I am from…Russia. And as long as we’re stuck in this bag, can we leave it at Kat Evans?”
“Why? Are you wanted for murder or peddling drugs to children?”
“No. Nothing like that. I would just rather not talk about it.”
“Running from an abusive husband? In which case, I’d offer a separate sleeping bag, but I don’t have one.”
“No. No husband.” She stared across the cave’s interior, wishing he would stop asking. “Is that a horse over there?”
“Consider him our chaperone. Bear is very good at keeping secrets. The stories he could tell, but won’t, would shock you.”
Katya laughed, although a little breathlessly. “I feel much safer, knowing he is here guarding my virtue.” And he gave her a good diversion from the stranger’s questions and naked body.
“Damn right.” The man nodded toward Bear. “Don’t tell her about the mare you stole from that stallion, boy. She wouldn’t understand.”
“I get it. You are trying to make me relax.”
“You’re brilliant as well as beautiful.” His hand brushed against her hip. “Is it working?”
Katya’s breath caught in her throat. The way his work-roughened fingers slid across her tender skin, aroused new sensations, making her body more alert, more sensitized to his nearness. “Somewhat,” she lied, again. “I have never lain naked with a stranger before.”
“That makes two of us. I usually get to know the women I sleep with before we climb into a sleeping bag together.” His voice lost all hint of humor. “Short of freezing to death in a blizzard, we didn’t have much choice.”
A shiver wracked her body and she pressed closer to him, absorbing his warmth, her skin tingling everywhere it touched his. “Good choice.” She inhaled the earthy scent of leather and male, noting the smoothness of his chest, not a hair on it. His nearness sparked a charge of electric current in her that made her want to explore more of his incredibly sexy body.
When was the last time she’d felt this drawn to a man? Never. The closest she had come was when she had been in lust with a politician’s son back when she was nineteen. A time when all was right with her world and her country.
With her future a black hole of uncertainty and danger, how could she be this attracted to a stranger?
In the rock-solid confines of the cave, with the warm glow of a flashlight chasing away the severe darkness, Katya felt safe for the first time since she’d been on the run. Safe enough to think of something or someone other than simple survival.
With her body heating rapidly, Katya fought for something to break the tension and silence. “Is the weather still bad outside?”
“Listen…” He held his breath and cocked his head to one side. “Wankatanka, the Great Spirit, is angry.”
Katya listened, concentrating on the silence. At first she heard nothing, then a thin, lonely wail whistled through the cavern, carried on a blast of frigid air that had found its way into their cocoon. Katya tugged at the edges of the bag, pulling it tighter around her shoulders, her face pressing close to the man’s chest. “I suppose it’s still bad out there.” She snuggled closer, the lonely sound of the wind emphasizing the chill still present in her body. His warmth enveloped her and made her feel safe and nervous at the same time. “You still haven’t told me your name.”
“Maddox.” His hand spread across her hip, his arm tightening, drawing her closer to his heat. “Maddox Thunder Horse. You’re trespassing on the Thunder Horse Ranch.”
“Maddox.” She tipped her head up to stare into eyes as black as the cave when it had been the darkest. “Pleasure to meet you. Please accept my sincere apologies for the trespass.” Her lips curled upward on the corners. “Thunder Horse is a different kind of last name.”
“I’m a member of the Lakota Nation. My father’s people were known for their strong horses.”
“You are a Native American? Is the ranch on a reservation?”
“No, my father’s father purchased the ranch from a retiring rancher fifty years ago. Since then, the Thunder Horses have added to the acreage.”
As he spoke, his hand smoothed back and forth over her hip, climbing up to her waist and back to her hip, cupping her bottom.
The more he touched her, the hotter she got, her breath coming in short gasps as if she could not quite catch it. With nothing but her bra and panties between her and the large man holding her in his arms, all manner of wicked thoughts filled Katya’s head. Her father would be appalled. “Do you have to do that?”
“What?”
“What you are doing with your hand?”
He jerked his hand away. “I was warming the cold skin. But if you’re warm already, I can stop.”
Immediately, Katya regretted saying anything. The heat his hand generated warmed her in many more ways than she could have imagined. “No, it felt nice. And I am very cold.” And alone.
She could hear the echoes of her father preaching to her. Someone of her breeding should never find herself alone and naked with a man not her husband.
Sadness gripped her anew. The father who had driven her crazy with his archaic ideas of decorum could no longer dictate her life. Nor could he hold her in his arms and tell her everything would be all right. Boris Ivanov had been murdered two weeks ago, his limousine ambushed by a lone shooter taking him out in a single shot. The news reported his death as an automobile crash. Katya’s inside sources told her otherwise.
A tear slid from the corner of her eye and dropped to the smooth skin of Maddox’s chest.
He looked down at her, a frown drawing black brows together. His arm settled around her, his hand resting on her hip, his feet touching hers in the bottom of the bag. “What’s wrong? Are you in any pain?”
He rubbed his foot along her calf, the warmth helping dispel the chill of her father’s death. She shook her head. “No.”
“I checked you over for frostbite. You looked okay a few hours ago.”
She sniffed, disturbed in a very visceral, but not unpleasant way at the thought of Maddox inspecting her body while she lay semi-comatose. As his foot stroked her calf, she stilled her father’s voice in her head, urging her to draw away. She liked the feel of his feet on her legs and especially his hand on her hip. A little too much for having just met the man. “I’m fine. Really.”
“Then why the tears?”
“No reason.” She sniffed again. “It’s just…” sniff, “my father was mur—died.” Katya sucked in a shaky breath and blew it out, attempting to pull away from the man’s chest to keep from letting more tears drop onto his naked skin. Hadn’t her father taught her better? Never let the public see you express untidy emotion. He had classified tears as unnecessarily messy. “I’m sorry. Ivan—” She bit down hard on her bottom lip and started again, struggling at lying to this man. “Evanses do not cry.”
Maddox pulled her back in the crook of his arm. “I’m sorry about your father. I lost mine not too long ago.”
Katya settled her cheek against his chest again and tilted her head up to study his face.
“I wish I could have said goodbye.”
“Me, too.”
High cheekbones, a rock-hard chin, dark skin and longish black hair gave away his heritage. The man could easily step into the past, hunting buffalo and living off the land. Again, his earthiness reassured her in the confines of the cave. He appeared to be in his element, completely capable of surviving in the harsh environment. Unlike her.
Having been raised surrounded by bodyguards, servants and political dignitaries, she had always relied on her social skills to survive. In the Badlands of North Dakota, social skills were less in demand and more of a hindrance. If she wanted to survive, she had better do as Maddox Thunder Horse said.
“How much longer do you think the storm will last?” she asked.
“Weather in the Badlands has a life of its own.” He tucked the corners of the bag around them more securely. “Rest. At least, it’ll pass time.”
Although tired, Katya didn’t feel even slightly sleepy. “I guess you are correct. Nothing else to do.” Except feel his lovely body against hers. She never would have thought lying with a man could feel so good. With her nerves on edge, she could be awake for a very long time. Awake and aware.
He reached out of the bag toward the flashlight.
Her attention riveted on the light, Katya gulped. “What are you doing?”
“Conserving the batteries.” He flipped the switch, plunging them into the inky blackness of complete and utter darkness. Katya’s sense of sight consisted of the residual glow of the flashlight, fading as darkness settled around her.
Her body shook, her teeth chattering. Her fingers dug into his skin, the sensation of falling into an abyss making her hold on for dear life.
Maddox eased her fingernails out of his hide and laced his fingers with hers. “Don’t tell me…” She could feel his head shaking back and forth over her head. “You’re afraid of the dark.”
“Sorry. It is a curse, something that has plagued me since I was very small.”
“I can turn the light back on, but the batteries will eventually fade, and we might have trouble finding our way back out of the cave.”
“Do not concern yourself about me. I will be fine.” Trying to keep her teeth from chattering, Katya aimed for nonchalance, failing miserably.
Maddox’s other arm tightened around her and he pulled her snugly against him. “Close your eyes and listen.”
“What?”
“Just do as I say.”
Katya squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the cave’s endless darkness. Now it was just her own darkness she had to overcome.
“Let me tell you a story my grandfather, James Thunder Horse, used to tell us as children.” Maddox’s voice hummed off the rocks, creating a warmth of spirit no heater or fire could generate. He spoke of a bear lost in the hills, trying to find his way home. Of a sly fox who led the bear farther away from home and a wise old wolf whose ferocity and courage helped the bear discover those virtues in himself. Ultimately, the bear found his way home, depending on the generosity of the wolf, and the assistance of the stars and the sun.
Katya’s eyes remained closed throughout the story. Instead of relaxing, her body stiffened with increasing desire, each muscle and nerve intensely aware of Maddox, responding to the rhythm of his voice, the vibrations of his chest in a way she could not have imagined in the palace back home. “You have a gift.” A gift possessed by no man she had ever met.
“It helps when you’re lying naked with a stranger.”
Katya could feel the strength in his body, the tautness of his muscles beneath her fingertips. She had never been this intimate with a man. Confined as they were in a cave, miles from everyone. Alone.
Even when she had explored sex with a classmate in the small school she had attended, she had not felt this close, as though their bodies melded into one.
Her hand slid across the hard planes of his chest, memorizing the texture and shape with her mind, imagining what it would feel like to love a man like this. To let him make love to her.
The heat in the sleeping bag intensified and her hand slipped lower. Would he be as hard all over? Her hand followed the ridges of his abdomen, sliding over the indentation of his belly button.
When her fingertips bumped into the steely velvet of his erection, a big hand caught her wrist, holding it in a vise grip.
“Don’t start something you can’t or won’t finish,” he said, his voice strained.
“I have never been with a man in a sleeping bag.”
“Then maybe now’s not the time to start.”
“I must apologize. I cannot seem to help myself. You do something to me.”
“You don’t know me, and I don’t know who you really are.”
“What do you want to know? I am a woman. I am unmarried. I do not have any diseases and I am twenty-seven, old enough to make my own decisions.” Perhaps she said the words to appease his conscience, but more likely the words came out to quiet her father’s voice in her head. Either way, the words were for her more than him, and she recognized them for what they were. Permission to let go.
“Sex between a man and a woman takes two to decide.”
He was right. Playing with Maddox Thunder Horse could be like playing with fire. But she wanted the heat he could provide, both outside and in.
Since her mother’s death when she was only sixteen, she had been the perfect daughter to her father, playing hostess to foreign diplomats, always doing and saying the right things, never stepping outside the bounds of etiquette. “For once in my life I want to make a decision for myself. For me alone. Not for my father. Not for the people around me.” She twisted her fingers around to lace them with his. “I know what I want.” Then another thought sobered her. “Do you not find me attractive?”
He sucked in a breath and guided her hand to that part of him standing at stiff attention. “You tell me.” His grip tightened on her. “If this is a tease, forget it.”
Her hand closed around him. “I am stuck in a cave with a man I find very attractive and who obviously finds me not completely hideous. It is quite dark. We are cold and I am not teasing.” She stroked her hand down his length, loving the contrast of velvet and steel. “Make love to me.”
For a long moment Maddox hesitated. “This has to be wrong.” His hand closed over hers, tightening her grip around him. Then he let go to slide upward to cup a full, rounded breast.
Katya’s back arched, pressing her breast into his hand, hungry for his touch, for the feel of his lips against her skin.
Trailing his fingers over her breast to cup her chin, he drew her to him, bringing their lips within a hair’s width of each other.
The warmth of his breath brushed across her lips and her mouth parted, a sharp draw of longing tugging at her core.
“I might regret this later, but for now…” His lips captured hers, grinding against her teeth, the force of his claim branding her with a desire so intense it stole her breath away. He moved against her, his sex rigid, pressing into her belly.
She shimmied out of her panties, while he unhooked the clasp on her bra. When she lay as naked as Maddox, Katya’s legs fell open, letting him slide between her thighs. He eased her onto her back, settling down over her. Then he thrust into her long and hard, filling her, stretching her deliciously.
Their bodies melded into one, the heat they generated making their skin slick with sweat.
And she wanted more.
She raised her knees, her hands gripping his buttocks, driving him faster, harder, and deeper into her, until she lost all sense of time and place. They came together as two separate people, but now they were as one in body and spirit, riding a wave of sensation so intense Katya almost forgot how to breathe. As she plunged over the edge of reason, she let go of her worries, and clung to the present and his body.
Eventually, sleep claimed her, wrapping her in warmth and security. She was assured of her safety, if only as long as she remained in his arms.
Minutes, hours, days could have passed before she returned to earth, the floor hard against her back, an icy draft cooling her damp skin.
In a half-sleep state, she listened for sounds of the storm outside. Silence filled the dark interior. No wailing screamed in through the cave’s rocky entrance.
With consciousness, reason and memories returned. A few hours ago she had woken up with a stranger, sharing his body’s warmth, both of them practically naked.
Katya moved, her knee sliding down Maddox’s leg, her bare thigh rubbing against his leg. She sucked in a gasp and her naked breasts pressed into his equally naked chest.
She had responsibilities. Her country needed her. Her people expected so much of her. And she’d just thrown it all to the wind to make love to a stranger.
What had she done? Would he understand when she had to leave? For leave she must, just as soon as she could contact her government for help. Katya chewed on her lip, her brow furrowing. Having ditched her car, and lost her identification and credit cards back on the snowmobile somewhere along the river, getting help would definitely be a challenge.
Chapter Three
Maddox lay beside the woman, guilt gnawing at him. He’d made love to a stranger not quite two years since the death of his fiancée. Susan, who’d grown up in the Badlands, who knew the dangers of living on the prairie, who loved the land and wild horses as much as he did. His perfect match in every way. And in every way so different from the woman lying in his arms.
Susan’s sun-kissed tawny hair reminded him of wheat and late-summer prairie grasses, wispy and straight, always blowing in the wind. Her eyes as gray as a storm-filled sky. Her long, lanky body strong and adept at riding the range alongside him.
Kat was nothing like Susan. Her hair lay in a mass of long, loose, black curls, emphasizing her pale skin and eyes as light as his were dark. Her diminutive body, though small, had curves that fit perfectly in his palm, a fact that brought on yet more twinges of guilt. How could he compare them? Susan had been his life, his soul mate, the woman he’d planned to spend the rest of his life with. Only her life had ended and he’d resigned himself to continuing on alone.
Yet this dark-haired beauty, with hands so soft they couldn’t have worked a hard day’s labor her entire life, lay naked against him. The smell of her skin, the softness of her body, still made him hard as a rock.
Maddox stiffened, his hands dropping to his sides, his fingers burning as though on fire from touching her. He jerked the sleeping bag’s zipper down, a frigid blast of arctic air biting at his naked flesh. He reached for the flashlight and switched it on.
Kat blinked, her eyes widening as the cool air hit her skin and pebbled the tips of her breasts. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Before he changed his mind and claimed her, Maddox climbed out of the bag, reaching back inside for his clothing lodged at the bottom.
In the freezing interior of the cave, he dressed quickly, fully aware of Kat’s gaze watching him, and thankful for the effect of the frigid temps on his libido.
Kat pulled the bag up to her nose, her dark eyes rounded, each breath a puff of steam. “Did I do something to make you mad?” She laughed. “I apologize. I have never been this forward with a man. I’m not usually left alone with one long enough.” Her eyes widened and she clamped her lips shut.
Maddox slipped into his insulated trousers, buttoning the fly. “Dress inside the bag. We leave as soon as it’s daylight.”
“Leave?” She shrank deeper into the bag, a tremor shaking her cocoon.
“Yes, leave.” Her big eyes reminded him of a scared colt, and he almost softened. Instead, he turned on his heels and edged through the crevice out into the bitter-cold wind.
The sun hovered below the horizon, giving the landscape a steely, washed-out, gray-blue glow. Clouds clogged the sky in a blanket of charcoal-smeared waves of dirty white, churned by the ever-present wind.
Maddox braced himself before leaving the relative shelter of the tumbled boulders to stare up the hillside at the icy terrain. They’d have to climb the rugged sides of the canyon wall to reach the plateau. From there it was an hour’s trek on horseback to the ranch house.
As bitter cold and windy as it was, he preferred to get back to the ranch rather than spending another night in the sleeping bag with Kat Evans—or whoever she really was. The sooner he got back, the sooner he could relinquish his responsibility for the woman.
Maddox unclipped the radio from his jacket and flipped the On switch. “Tuck, you out there?” As he waited for any response, he knew he’d get none. The handheld radios had a short range. More than likely, Tuck had made it back to the ranch and was wondering what had happened to Maddox. He hoped they hadn’t sent out a search party. With the skies as heavy as they were, they could be in for another onslaught of the white stuff.
Maddox closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, the frigid air stinging his lungs. He could taste the coming snow, feel it in his blood, chilling him to the bone. It would arrive soon. Too soon for comfort.
Something touched his arm, jerking him out of his trance and back to the canyon floor. He spun, braced for attack.
Kat stood with her arms crossed, the red scarf wrapped around her nose and mouth and her jacket hood pulled up over her hair. Buried in all those layers, her pale face peeked around the edges of clothing, her eyes as wide as icy-blue saucers. “I am r-ready,” she said, her voice muffled by the wool scarf.
“Then we leave.” He reentered the cave, making quick work of rolling up the sleeping bag. Flashlight in hand, he led the stallion through the entrance and out into the windy gray of predawn.
Kat waited at the cave entrance, stamping her boots in the snow, rubbing her hands along her arms, her gaze darting from side to side as if she feared venturing out for more reasons than the cold wind. “Are you sure we shouldn’t stay here?”
One look at Kat and the memories of the night before hit Maddox like a sucker punch to the groin. “We move.” He didn’t ask permission or warn her. With little effort, he grabbed her around the waist and swung her up into the saddle.
Kat squealed and held on to the saddle horn as Bear reared and danced to the side.
She sat the horse well, despite his nervous dance, as though she’d ridden before. A woman with soft hands who could ride.
Maddox tucked that little bit of insight away in the back of his mind. He’d get to the bottom of Kat Evans when they were safe from the weather. With gentle hands, he pulled on the reins, running gloved fingers over the horse’s nose, speaking to him in Lakota, calming him.
Then he set out at a quick pace, leading the horse along the base of the bluffs, searching for a suitable path to climb out of the canyon.
“Aren’t you going to ride with me?” Kat called out, hunkered down as low as she could get in the saddle to escape the full force of the driving wind. Her voice barely carried over the roar of wind bouncing off stony cliffs.
“Not until we’re out of the canyon.” Finally, a break in the sheer rock wall revealed a narrow path zigzagging up the side of the canyon, probably left by elk or big horn sheep. Maddox climbed the hill, the horse close behind him. Kat clung to the saddle horn as they rose from the riverbed up the treacherous trail.
Several times Maddox’s boots slipped on loose rocks, sending a tumble of gravel and stones toward the horse. Bear sidestepped and almost lost his footing. Kat’s hand flailed out for balance, her face even more pale and pinched than when they’d started up the incline.
Maddox found that the less he looked at her, the better he felt. Only when he had to did he turn to make sure that she hadn’t lost her grip and fallen from the horse.
Kat’s fingers and cheekbones burned with the cold. Not long after they left the cave, she started shivering and could not seem to stop. She could not afford to waste all her energy, not when she had to use all her strength just to hang on.
She cast a look over her shoulder to the canyon floor, wondering where the man who had been following her had gone. Had he headed back when the storm struck? Or had he holed up as she had? In which case, he would be out looking for her again.
A shiver shook her so hard her teeth rattled. If not for Maddox, she would have died out there, saving the man following her the trouble of killing her.
Where would that leave her country? Without a ruler, without anyone to lead them into democracy, her people would fall back into chaos and warlords would take over. She needed to find out who was behind her father’s death. No matter what the news reports said, that car crash had begun with a bullet. A deliberate attack by a skilled assassin.
Whoever was after her did not plan on holding her hand and escorting her back to her country. He had taken several shots at her before she had lost him. Skimming through streams and across barren rocks had taken their toll on her snowmobile, but had bought her much-needed time to escape in an otherwise snow-covered landscape.
She had taken a huge risk crossing Minnesota and North Dakota in a car. The open farm fields and grasslands left little cover and concealment. But she kept moving just to escape the law and the predator tailing her. Only he had been persistent and tracked her every move. She was tired of running, tired of always looking over her shoulder, completely cut off from everyone who could possibly help.
As they climbed higher, the terrain became increasingly more treacherous and their footing more precarious. The more Kat looked back at the canyon floor, the dizzier she got. The canyon wall inclined at more than a forty-five-degree angle, the path they followed less than six inches wide in most places. How she longed to be on foot, rather than perched high on a horse’s back, even that much farther from the ground.
Nausea fought with vertigo, making her head spin. Kat squeezed her eyes shut and clung to the saddle horn. Because the stirrups were so long, her feet did not quite reach the footrests, giving her no way to balance her weight on the big animal. With her hands quickly freezing and the possibility of a frightening fall making her hold tighter, she thought the ride to the canyon’s rim would never end.
With one mighty lunge, the horse nearly unseated her, clearing the edge of the canyon and arriving on the plateau above.
Kat opened her eyes, the wind whipping her scarf across her face. For as far as she could see, semi-barren rolling hills stretched before her.
Behind her, the canyon cut a long, jagged swath out of the prairie walls blown free of snow, glowing a ruddy red in the increasing light from the muted sun. Every breath of the wickedly cold air stung her lungs and bored through her thick clothing. Chills shuddered across her body and she huddled lower in the saddle, praying for the journey to end, preferably in a hot tub. She groaned. How she would love to sink neck deep into a warm bath and stay there until her skin shriveled.
All the while she had been perched atop the giant stallion, Maddox had been climbing the hill. He had to be tired by now. Was he as cold as she was? Did he wish to be done with this trek—and her?
Several hundred feet from the rim of the canyon, Maddox stopped to catch his breath and speak to the horse in a language Katya did not understand. She assumed he spoke the language of the Lakota Nation.
In the light, she could finally see him. Dark skin, black eyes and straight, thick black hair falling to his shoulders. He tugged his fur-lined parka up around his face and turned to face her.
With the ease of one born to ride, he placed one foot into the stirrup and swung up onto the horse’s back, landing behind the saddle.
His arm wrapped around her waist and he lifted her, easing himself into the seat beneath her, settling her onto his thighs.
Immediately she could feel his warmth through her clothing. Just blocking the wind on one side made a difference. She sank back against him, glad for his presence and the balance he provided on the moving beast.
He did not say anything and with the wind so strong it could steal her breath away, Kat did not speak either.
For several miles, they rode in silence, curled into each other.
The gentle rocking motion of the horse, plus the constant cold, lulled Kat into a dull, half-sleep state. Snow turned to sleet, the tiny hard pellets slung sideways by the approaching storm.
“Don’t go to sleep, Kat Evans,” a voice said over the roar of the wind.
“Why?” she leaned against him, her eyelids dropping over snow-stung eyes. “I am exceedingly tired.”
“If you fall asleep, who will I talk to?”
She snorted softly. “You were not talking.” She turned her face into his jacket. “I am so cold.”
“We’ll be there in less than half an hour.”
“I need to sleep.”
“Talk to me, Kat,” he said, his chest rumbling against her back.
“About what?” she muttered, her eyes closed. She had to keep her secrets, but she didn’t have to stay awake, did she?
“How did you get into the canyon? We’re miles from the closest highway or public lands.”
In her sleepy haze she could not think straight. How much could she reveal? Did she care? She gave a halfhearted attempt at laughter and opted for mostly truth. “I did not see the canyon. I drove my snowmobile over the edge. It did not stop until it reached the bottom beside the riverbed.”
Funny how leaning against Maddox, with the soft swaying of the horse beneath her, lulled her into thinking the horrible tumble down the bluff was nothing but a bad dream. Except for a few bruises, she had survived, only to fall victim to the extreme cold and mind-numbing lethargy.
Other than her hands and feet, she was fairly warm in Maddox’s capable arms. They did not build men this rugged where she was from. Her brows furrowed. Or she had never met any men who had been built this sturdy. Her father had kept her surrounded by bodyguards and state officials everywhere she went in Trejikistan.
Maddox shifted her weight, pulling her closer against him. “Why were you snowmobiling out this far? Why not closer to Bismarck?”
“Cars cannot follow.” She yawned and settled back against him, her eyelids closing for the final count. “Unfortunately other snowmobiles can.”
“Isn’t that the idea with a snowmobile tour?” Maddox’s words were carried away on the wind as Katya slipped into a numbing sleep.
Maddox stopped the horse periodically to tuck Katya’s hands into his jacket and adjust her position to keep her from getting too cold in any one place. As he rode Bear through the storm, he went over Kat’s words again and again. They didn’t make any sense. Had she been out on a snowmobile tour and gotten lost? And what did she mean that cars couldn’t follow but snowmobiles could? Had she been running away from something? Was someone following her?
Maddox vowed to get to the bottom of it all when they finally made it back to the ranch. The one-hour ride from the canyon rim stretched into two as the storm settled in around them.
Sleet turned to snow, blowing in sideways, making it difficult for him to see more than two feet ahead of them. At one point, he took shelter in a ravine, the wind and sleet too harsh to be out on the open plains.
Too cold to remain exposed much longer, he ventured out again, hoping Bear knew the way. Maddox couldn’t make out any landmarks and the storm only grew worse, nearing blizzard conditions.
Maddox hoped the horse’s sense of direction led them back to the safety of the barn and ranch house and not farther away.
When he’d just about given up hope of getting there, the ranch house materialized through the whiteout conditions.
A dog barked, and a light blinked on next to the front door.
Through the driving snow, his brother and a ranch hand raced out into the blizzard toward the horse and the two people sagging in the saddle.
“Take the woman.” Maddox handed Katya down into waiting arms. He didn’t like others carrying her away, but the cold had taken more out of him than he originally thought.
He nudged the horse toward the barn. When they reached the barn door, he slipped from the saddle, his legs buckling. If not for the horse standing beside him, Maddox would have gone down in the snow.
Three Thunder Horse ranch hands emerged from the barn. One took the horse’s reins and the other two rushed to grab Maddox’s arms, draping them over their shoulders. His horse taken care of, Maddox let the men walk him up to the house. Once inside, he settled in a chair near the hearth where a fire blazed with enough warmth to thaw even the coldest parts of his body.
His mother, Amelia Thunder Horse, crouched on the floor in front of him and tugged his boots off his feet and the socks with it. “Thank the Lord you made it back. We were so worried. Who is the woman you brought with you? Where did you find her?”
Too tired to answer her, Maddox stood. “I’ll answer all your questions later. Where is she?”
“In the guest bedroom.”
Maddox stumbled down the hallway, shedding his jacket. When he reached the guestroom, Mrs. Janek, the housekeeper had just finished tucking Kat into the bed, the blankets drawn up to her chin. The older woman clucked her tongue. “She’s out. I hope she’ll be all right. Do you want me to call the doctor?”
“No, I’ll see to her.” Maddox stood next to the bed, staring down at the woman who’d called herself Kat. In his gut, he knew she hadn’t told him the entire truth. Despite that, he couldn’t help the overwhelming need to protect her that came over him.
Tired beyond endurance, he pulled the covers aside and lay in the bed beside her, gathering her into his arms as he’d done in the cave.
“Maddox?” His mother hovered in the door of the guestroom. “Is she okay?” She twisted her fingers together, her brows dipped in a worried frown. “Are you okay?
His eyelids weighed so heavily, he closed them. “I don’t know, Mother. Somehow, I don’t think I’ll ever be okay.”
Chapter Four
Lights glittered in the myriad chandeliers hanging from the vast ceiling. Too bright, all merging and blending together as she spun around the room, dancing from partner to partner. In a deep red ball gown, her hair piled high on her head and the world at her feet, Katya smiled, laughed and drank champagne from crystal goblets.
At one point her father danced her around the room. She was a little girl all over again, smiling up at him, proud of the man who ruled Trejikistan and made her feel loved and protected. So relieved to see him healthy and happy, she leaned against him and hugged him tight. “They told me you were dead.”
He just laughed and spun her into the arms of her brother, Dmitri, so tall and handsome, his wavy black hair so much like her own. His hands held her, gently guiding her through the steps of the intricate traditional dance of her ancestors. Hands of a doctor, a man meant to do good for the people, with a heart so big he could love every child in their country.
Katya smiled and laughed at him. “Where have you been, Dmitri? We have all been so worried.”
Before he could answer, the music ended. Dmitri tweaked her nose, just as he had since she’d been a small child, and disappeared into the crowd.
Standing alone in the crowd of guests, Katya looked around for her father and brother, suddenly sad, lonely and afraid. The orchestra played a waltz, the music so beautiful it melted Katya’s fears and sadness away. As she glanced around the ballroom, the sea of blurred faces parted and one man stood at the center. Unlike the other guests, this man didn’t wear a tuxedo or the uniform of a military man. He wore buckskins and moccasins, his long black hair hanging down around his shoulders, a wild gleam in his brown-black eyes.
As if drawn to him by a magical thread, Katya floated across the room toward him, the other guests fading away in a haze of gray. She could see his face so clearly, every line, angle and shadow etched in her memory. When the tall, swarthy Lakota native took her in his arms, he moved with the grace of a lion. At ease in his traditional dress, he waltzed her around the room, ignoring the whispers and comments made by statesmen and their wives, oblivious to the pomp and circumstance strictly adhered to in formal settings.
For once, Katya did not care that she might not fit in, that the man she danced with would draw censure from the exalted guests. Princes, princesses and leaders of foreign countries did not matter to her as long as she remained in the Lakota native’s arms. The world didn’t exist, except for the two of them.
As the music faded to a halt, the world crowded in. Her father gripped her arm and pulled her away from the Lakota.
“No!” she cried out. “I want to stay with him.”
But her father’s grip tightened and he led her out of the palace and into a waiting limousine where her brother sat, shaking his head.
“No! Let me stay. I want to dance,” Katya called out.
The limousine sped into the darkness, the lights from the palace fading with each passing mile. Katya looked back, her tears blurring her vision.
When she slumped into her seat beside her father and brother, she could not stop sobbing. “Why?”
Suddenly, the vehicle lurched, rammed by another car speeding along the highway. The limousine spun around and around, the motion flinging Katya around the inside. Out of control, it pitched over the edge of the road and tumbled into a ditch.
The door nearest her flew open and Katya fell into the ditch, facedown, her beautiful gown ruined in the mud.
She lay for a moment, wondering if she had died. But the sticks poking into her hands and face made her open her eyes and look around.
The limousine lay on its side, riddled with bullet holes.
“No!”
MADDOX HAD AWAKENED WHEN Kat first kicked out in her sleep. He stared down at the woman who’d managed to end up in his arms yet again.
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