Free Defiant by Patricia; Potter

but he’d felt no passion for her, only gratitude that she had soothed some of that fierce anger he had turned on himself.
    She had been so accepting, so eager to share with him the simple pleasures of a mountain sunrise or a bud on a tree. She had asked for so little in return for teaching him, in her quiet, innocent way, how to live again. And now he’d turned away from all her lessons.
    Wade reached for the beaded necklace on the table. It had belonged to his son, a gift on his name day. Chivita had patiently carved the beads from buffalo horns, and Wade had traded for the silver eagle, which had been fashioned by a Navaho craftsman. It had been Drew’s prized possession.
    There were still traces of blood on it. Drew’s blood, he supposed. Ignoring his pain, he dropped the necklace over his head. He could care less what the woman or her son thought. He wondered whether he was actually challenging them.
    It galled him to owe a debt to a woman who, like so many others, held Indians in contempt. It galled him even more to be imprisoned here by his own weakness.
    Unable to sleep, he tried to sit. The lamp beside him was still lit, and he put out the flame, then looked toward the curtained window.
    He wanted it open. He wanted to feel fresh air. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel so trapped.
    He managed to get to his feet and stumble over to the window. He pushed aside the curtains and tried the window. It opened halfway, and he leaned against the wall and breathed deeply.
    The rain had stopped, but the sky was dark, unlit by any star or piece of moon. He couldn’t see the mountains. Black Mountains, they were called.
    But they weren’t nearly as black as his soul.
    Mary Jo wasn’t sure when the rain had stopped. She woke to the stillness of the night. It was eerily silent after the nearly constant sound of thunder and the pounding of heavy drops against the roof.
    She might as well get up, walk around, do something. Once she woke up at night, she always had trouble going back to sleep. Years, she supposed, of waiting for the sound of a door opening, of boots approaching her room. She’d spent nearly all her married life waiting.
    And now she felt as if she were waiting again, but this time she didn’t know for what.
    She stood in her nightdress. She’d made it herself several years ago before Jeff had been killed, and he had loved it. She’d spent hours sewing lace to the thin cotton. It had been a luxury, and she had not worn it since he died. She had no idea why she had put it on. A need to feel like a woman again?
    She nibbled on her lip as she tried to deny the longing that had been stirred inside her. It kept bubbling, no matter how hard she tried to stop it. The fact that it had started with the stranger’s arrival terrified her. He was everything she should run from, should keep young Jeff from.
    Air. Fresh air should restore her reason. She tiptoed through the room, careful not to wake her son. She crept quietly to the front door and opened it, standing in the doorway.
    A fresh breeze seemed to be washing away the heavy, sultry air that had clung around the ranch house for many days. It felt good brushing through her hair, cooling her hot face.
    She relished the sight of clouds rushing across the dark sky. Rushing away now to plague someone else with endless days of rain.
    And yet she was grateful to the rain. It had helped the stranger. It had washed away his tracks.
    The stranger.
    Her thoughts kept coming back to him . And her protectiveness toward him, regardless of how rude he was, or how ungrateful.
    Jake came out on the porch and sat, cocking his head to one side. He whined for attention, and she stooped down, her hand running absently alongside his ears. The whine changed into a growl of pleasure.
    â€œAh, Jake,” she whispered. “What do you see in him to like?”
    He growled again.
    â€œYou’re just as troublesome as he is,” she told the