Free The Pride of Hannah Wade by Janet Dailey Page B

loose folds of her long riding skirt became tangled around her legs. Her Apache captor stood at her feet, his obsidian eyes staring at her out of the brutish face with one cheek scarred by a knife, his shaggy black hair hanging past his brown-skinned shoulders. The menace in him was silent.
    Hannah remembered that he had spoken Spanish and said, in the border tongue, “The soldiers will come. They will catch you.”
    The smallest flicker of surprise flitted across his wooden expression before it returned to its customary blankness. With a slight turn of his head, he translated her warning to the other members of his party in theirown language. A few derisive-sounding responses were offered.
    “Yellow legs slow. Soldiers come. Apache no be here,” he answered her, harsh and arrogant. “Apache like grains of sand. Sprinkle on desert. No find.”
    Her stomach knotted into a tight ball. For a second she looked away, trying to find some other straw of hope to grasp. There was a sudden motion and the-hat was plucked from her head, her hair painfully pulled until the securing pin was jerked loose. Hannah gasped aloud at the pain and lifted a hand to her hair, its chignon pulled loose. But she thought the better of arguing over Lutero’s right to her dark green hat.
    To the chortling delight of his comrades, he set it squarely atop his black head. It was barely big enough in circumference to circle It, sitting a good inch higher than the clay-red sweatband around his head. But Lutero seemed satisfied with the fit and made a demanding gesture at Hannah.
    “Coat,” he said, meaning the green riding jacket that matched the hat.
    Once she realized he was serious, Hannah removed her riding gloves to unfasten the looped buttons of the jacket’s front. Sitting upright, she shrugged out of the fitted top and handed it to him. She felt immediately cooler without that layer of clothing, and she welcomed the relief on her heated skin.
    The jacket was much too small to fit the powerfully built Apache with his broad shoulders and runner’s chest. The back seam split and the sleeves ripped as he tugged it on. Angrily he pulled it off and threw it on the ground. Hannah thought it foolish of him to believe it could fit him. She untangled her skirts to stand up and brush away the dirt and debris from her fall.
    Lutero caught up a handful of the hunter-green skirtmaterial. Hannah acted without thinking, pushing at his hand to get it away from her person and to free her skirts. Her show of resistance brought a snarl to his lightning-streaked face. He yanked violently on the material, throwing her off balance. The waistband fastening gave, the cloth ripping as she fell. She was tumbled out of the skirt and its slip, like a pillow turned out of its case.
    Clad only in her blouse and pantalettes, Hannah clambered to her feet and backed warily away from the Apache, very much afraid. The rocks at the cliff’s base slid beneath the leather soles of her riding boots. Solid sandstone was behind her. Blood pounded in her ears as her breath came in fast, panic-shallow gasps. Her nerves were screaming with the tension, but Hannah fought to still the panic. When he took a step toward her, Hannah bolted for an open space that would give her maneuvering room, but he caught her, his fingers digging into her arms like ensnaring talons. The thin material of her blouse tore like paper under his grip as she struggled to break loose. The ache of her weary muscles was forgotten, renewed strength coming from the surge of adrenaline in her veins. Twisting and fighting, she kicked at him, the toe of her boot squarely hitting his shin and drawing an involuntary grunt of pain.
    She was thrown violently to the ground, scraping her flesh on the sharp gravel. Her feet were caught, and after he made one abortive attempt to pull her boots off, a knife blade flashed in the sunlight. Her blood froze at the sight of it, all her limbs momentarily stilled. It sliced through the