THE APACHE WARRIOR LOVED HER FOR ONE NIGHT – YEARS LATER, HE RETURNED TO CLAIM HER HEART
Chapter 3
For a long moment the two women stood in the lamplight, the only sounds in the kitchen the hiss of the lamp and the far-off murmur of soldiers’ voices. Then Eliza straightened, and something in her old face hardened into resolve. “Then we must un-do it,” she said. “Before the sun rises, we must un-do what I have done.”
Hannah stared at her. “You would help me now? After this?”
“I thought I was protecting you,” Eliza said. “But I was only protecting my own fear of losing you. Seeing you today — how certain you are, how whole — I understand. Your happiness means more to me than my fears.” She took Hannah’s hands in her weathered ones. “Miguel knows. I saw him watching the mountains tonight, the way a man watches for a friend. He has met your Apache on his hunting trails, more than once, and they have come to a kind of understanding. Miguel can carry a warning before your warrior walks into a trap.”
Hope, thin and sharp, cut through the cold in Hannah’s chest. “You would trust him with this?”
“I trust him with my life,” Eliza said. “And I trust him with yours.”
She pressed a folded paper into Hannah’s hand — a note already written, warning Nokashi to stay hidden until the following night, when the soldiers would be dealt with. “All it needs,” Eliza said, “is something he will know comes from you.”
Hannah did not hesitate. She pulled the leather cord from her neck and pressed the turquoise stone into Eliza’s palm. “Give him this. He will know it is from me.”
Eliza’s eyes filled with tears. She tucked the stone and the note into her apron pocket. “I will tell Miguel to warn him. And tomorrow night,” she added, her voice dropping to a whisper, “I will put a sleeping draught in the captain’s tea. I have learned a few things about herbs in my years on the frontier. Nothing dangerous — just enough to make him sleep like the dead while you slip away.”
Hannah embraced her, and for a moment the betrayal and the fear and the years of shared history all melted into a single word: love. “Thank you,” she whispered into Eliza’s hair. “For everything. For always.”
“Be happy, child,” Eliza said, her voice breaking. “That is all I have ever wanted for you.”
From the bedroom window an hour later, Hannah watched Miguel slip across the moonlit pasture toward the old cottonwood, carrying her stone and her hope into the dark. She did not sleep that night. She sat by the window with her riding clothes laid out on the bed and counted the hours until morning.
The next day passed like an illness. Hannah went through the motions of ranch life — inspecting the north pasture, reviewing accounts, smiling at Reynolds when he rode beside her and tried, in his decent, clumsy way, to convince her that she was making the wrong choice. “Your father is not a patient man,” he said. “He only wants what is best for you.”
“I know you believe that, William,” Hannah said, and she meant it. In another life, in another world, she might have been able to love this honorable man. But her heart had been given away beside a waterfall, and it had never been returned to her.
That afternoon she made a decision. She turned her horse toward the ranch house and said, as calmly as she could manage: “Captain. I have decided to give you my answer. I need one more day to put my affairs in order. In the morning I will ride back to Fort Union with you and your men, and I will speak to my father myself.”
Reynolds studied her face, searching for the lie in it. Whatever he found, he seemed satisfied. “Your father will be glad to hear it, Hannah. I am glad to hear it.”
“I am glad I found the courage,” she said, and it was almost true.
That evening, after a dinner of roasted venison and beans that she could barely force down, Eliza appeared with a tray of tea. “A special blend, Captain Reynolds,” she said, her voice perfectly smooth. “To help you rest after your long days in the saddle.”
Reynolds drank it gratefully, remarking on its pleasant, unfamiliar taste. Within half an hour his eyelids were drooping, his words thickening. “I believe I shall retire early,” he said, yawning. “Tomorrow will be a long ride.”
“I will see you in the morning, Captain,” Hannah said, and watched him climb the stairs with the careful, deliberate steps of a man being pulled down into sleep. Eliza caught her eye across the table and nodded once.