Apache Flame by Madeline Baker Page B

know. Just you.”
    “You don’t even know me anymore.”
    “I know you,” he replied quietly. “I’ve always known you.”
He leaned across the table again. “I know you better than you know yourself,
better than Roger Smithfield will ever know you.”
    Did he still want her? Hope flared in her heart, a wild
sweet hope as she thought of what it would be like to be Mitch’s wife. She
savored it for one precious moment, and then shook her head. “My father would
never approve. And Roger…he’s been good to me. I can’t hurt him.”
    He sat back in his chair, as tense as a cat ready to spring.
“But you don’t mind hurting me.”
    “You could have written me again,” she retorted, feeling all
her old hurt and anger welling up inside her as she recalled how awful it had
been when she realized she was pregnant, how much easier it would have been to
tell her father if Mitch had been there beside her, lending her his strength.
“If you really loved me, you would have come back for me.”
    “For what?” He slammed his fist on the table, causing the
cutlery to rattle. Water splashed over the edge of her glass, making a dark
stain on the white damask tablecloth. “I thought you were already married.”
    Alisha glanced around the restaurant. Several people were
staring in their direction. What had she been thinking when she agreed to meet
Mitch here tonight? By tomorrow morning, it would be all over town that she’d
had dinner with Mitch Garret. What would her father say when he found out? What
would Roger say?
    She looked around the restaurant, at the curious stares. She
couldn’t face them, she couldn’t face Mitch. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
    Throwing her napkin on the table, she stood up and hurried
out of the restaurant. She paused on the boardwalk a moment, her heart
pounding. She couldn’t go home, not now. Her father would take one look at her
face and know something was wrong.
    Lifting her skirts, she ran across the street and down the
narrow path that led to the creek.
    * * * * *
    Mitch swore under his breath as he watched Alisha run out
the door. Unconsciously, he shoved the letter into his pants pocket. Rising, he
dropped a couple of dollars on the table, then grabbed his hat and left the
restaurant.
    Darkness had fallen. Standing on the boardwalk, he glanced
up and down the street. There was no sign of her. He stood there a moment, and
then crossed the street toward the path that led to the creek. She would be
there.
    He followed the familiar path, remembering all the times he
had traveled it in his youth, usually with Alisha at his side. He had walked
her home from school, glad for any excuse to be with her. They had parted where
the trail forked. She had gone left and he had gone right, across the creek,
down the rutted road that led to the shack that had never been a home.
    He rounded the bend and made his way toward the creek. She
was there, as he had known she would be. Standing on the rock, silhouetted in
the light of the moon, just as he had imagined her night after night when he
couldn’t sleep, when thoughts of Alisha, of what he had lost, tormented his
mind.
    She didn’t turn, but he heard her voice clearly. “Why did
you have to come back here?”
    “You know why.”
    “Go away, Mitch. Please, just go away.”
    “Is that what you really want?”
    “Yes.”
    He moved up behind her, almost but not quite touching her.
He took a deep breath, filling his senses with the sight of her, the scent of
her, the nearness of her. “‘Lisha…”
    “No.” She shook her head. “No, no.” And yet even as she
spoke, she was turning, yearning, reaching out for him.
    His arms were ready for her, open and inviting, just as they
had always been, and she stepped into his embrace, wary as a rabbit scenting
danger, eager as a child reaching for a treat that been too long denied.
    “‘Lisha!”
    His arms closed around her, crushing her close. She buried
her face against his shoulder, her