Hostage To Thunder Horse

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.”

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