“You did it once before and it didn’t choke you to death,” she reminded him, and was surprised when he began chuckling. “What’s so funny? My comment was meant to be a clever barb, not a joke.”

“It’s not you,” Meade assured her. “I was remembering something your sister—the other Miss Templeton—said to me.”

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“What?”

The laughter still sparkled in Meade’s eyes as he informed her, “She told me that you are such a horrendous cook that your biscuits had been known to choke a mule.”

Rayna glowered at him. “What else did she tell you about me?”

“That you’re terrible at needlework.”

Rayna threw up her hands. “Well, there you have it. All my dirty little secrets. You might as well take me out and shoot me now. I don’t deserve to live.”

Her rapid-fire delivery had Meade buckled in half with laughter that carried far across the plaza and caused passersby to stop and look. “You are a caution, Miss Templeton,” he said, still chuckling as he straightened.

“A foul-mouthed—”

“Enough! Enough! I surrender,” he said, straightening up and extending his hand to her. “Come on, I’ll take you to lunch at the Palace and apologize.”

Rayna looked at his hand, then directly into his eyes. “I don’t want an apology unless you mean it sincerely.”

“Do you want lunch?” he asked, raising one dark eyebrow.

She hesitated a moment. “Yes.”

“Then take my arm, and we’ll go. If you can manage to get through the meal without questioning anyone’s parentage, I’ll apologize sincerely over dessert.”

“I should warn you, Major. I’ve never lost a dare,” she informed him, slipping her hand into his as she rose. The innocent contact suddenly seemed very intimate to them both. Their eyes met, questioning the odd sensation, and several seconds passed before Meade found the presence of mind to release her hand.

They began strolling toward the Palace Hotel, and neither of them could think of a single thing to say.

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7

Skylar was accustomed to hard work, but her daily chores at Rancho Verde had not prepared her for the harsh realities of her new life. After a simple exchange of gifts with Naka’yen, the old chief had helped the Verde Mescaleros find a suitable location for a permanent camp, and since then the work had been unending. Alongside the other women, Skylar had cleared brush and helped erect sturdy lodges. From dawn to dusk she cooked, carried water, collected firewood, tended the livestock . . . and in her spare time she made clothes for herself from scraps of cloth and blankets given to her by her friends. Having had so little time to prepare for their journey, no one had much to spare. Mary Long Horn had given some of her clothing to Skylar, but her dress from the maiden ceremony and the calico skirt and overblouse Mary had given her wouldn’t last long. It wasn’t surprising to her that nearly everyone she saw on the reservation was dressed in oft-mended clothing that amounted to little more than rags.

Skylar knew that cleanliness was highly prized by the Mescalero, but under these conditions keeping clean was next to impossible. Water was scarce, and while the other women were able to make soap from the aloe plant, that skill had long ago been lost to the Verde Mescaleros. Even if one 85

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of them had known how, Skylar couldn’t imagine when anyone would have had time to do something as mundane as making soap. Tending a camp was a full-time occupation.

As difficult as it was, Skylar didn’t mind the work. Having so much to do helped distract her from her constant worry about her father and her desperate longing to go home. With every day that passed, that dream seemed to slip a little further away from her, though. She knew she had not been forgotten or abandoned, and that Rayna was doing everything humanly possible to secure her freedom; but at the end of each day when no one had come to take her home, she felt a little more hopeless and lost than she had at the start of the day.

Little by little she was learning about the other Mescaleros on the reservation. Like other Apache tribes, the Mescaleros were broken into small bands comprising several family units. Joe Long Horn, Mary’s father, had found a few distant relatives, but so many of the Mescaleros had been exterminated over the last few decades that there were few other connections between the Verdes and the other bands.

Their chief was Naka’yen, and Skylar had eventually learned the name of the brave who had so startled her that first night. He was Naka’yen’s son, and his name was a complicated phrase that had taken a considerable amount of study to translate. Skylar still wasn’t sure she had it right. To the best of her knowledge, he was called Angry He Flies Like a Hawk into the Sun. She had also heard him referred to as Iya’itsa—Sun Hawk—and it was far easier for her to think of him by that name. To her great surprise, she thought of him often.

She had seen him many times since that first night, and each time she fully expected that the breathless jolt of excitement she experienced would dissi-pate. It didn’t. Every time she caught a glimpse of him her heart began to race as it had when he appeared in the darkness.

The Verdes’ camp was situated less than a half mile from Naka’yen’s, and Sun Hawk often passed by, occasionally with other braves, but most of the time he was alone. If Consayka was outside his lodge, Sun Hawk would stop and speak with the old man; if not, he would pass by, rarely looking at any of the women in the camp, for that would have been bad manners.

Many times Skylar had caught herself watching for him, and it always took considerable effort not to stare. He wasn’t just handsome, he was mesmerizing. His every move bespoke a quiet power that drew Skylar like a mag-net. She had never exchanged a word with him, but several times she overheard parts of his conversations with Consayka, and she knew that he was a man committed to peace.

To her great surprise she had found Sun Hawk watching her several times when he thought she was not looking. Her heart would quicken in those 86

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moments, but if she dared look directly at him, his glance would dart away.

She suspected that his interest was merely curiosity, or perhaps even amusement. It was obvious to anyone who cared to study the workings of the Verde camp that Skylar was different from the other women. She had learned many things about her friends over the years, but she’d had little opportunity to put her knowledge to practical use.

As a result, Skylar was clumsy and slow at almost everything she did. On the day she attempted to erect her own lodge, Sun Hawk had been a witness to her ineptitude, and the memory of it still made Skylar smile. She had been grappling with the poles, trying to align them in an even circle when Sun Hawk passed nearby. He had given no appearance of being aware of anything taking place in the camp, but when Skylar caught sight of him she had tripped over one of the poles, causing the entire framework to come tumbling down around her.

Embarrassed, she looked up and found Sun Hawk still strolling along, but his shoulders had been jerking with what could only have been laughter. It was clear that he had been trying hard not to look at the spectacle openly, and despite her exhaustion and frustration, Skylar had laughed, too—for the first time since she had been abducted from Rancho Verde. She had Sun Hawk to thank for that brief respite from her despair, and her gratitude only increased her warm feelings for him.

Under other circumstances, Skylar might have been amused by her fascination with the brave. She had had schoolgirl crushes before. When she was thirteen, she had thought Gil Rodriguez’s son was the handsomest man she had ever seen. Of course, the word “man” had been loosely applied, since Tomás was barely sixteen at the time. Rayna had teased Skylar mercilessly and threatened to tell Tomás of her infatuation with him, but blessedly Skylar had outgrown her crush and Tomás had married a few years later without every realizing that he had been the object of her childish affections.

There had been other infatuations in her life, and once she had thought herself truly in love. Skylar had been in school in Boston at the time, and she had met Stephen Dodd through friends of the Templetons whom she and Rayna often visited. There had been nothing particularly handsome about Stephen, but he had been a quiet, considerate gentleman who loved poetry and knew how to flatter all the young ladies of his acquaintance.

Skylar had adored him, and had allowed herself to believe that he loved her in return.

Though she rarely thought of him anymore, Skylar liked to imagine that Stephen had loved her—in his own peculiar way. Unfortunately that way hadn’t included marriage, at least not to a young woman of Indian blood, though he had been perfectly willing to offer her a position as his mistress.

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After that crushing blow, Skylar had forced herself to face the reality of her situation: No white man was ever going to see her as a suitable wife. She had sworn never to open herself to such pain again, and so far she had kept that promise.