Captive by Heather Graham Page B

her objection had been. This was what she wanted. This fierce kind of love. Nothing less. And if she could not find it, then she wanted independence.
    And nothing less.
    Easy to want, hard to achieve …
    Tara eased herself from her husband’s embrace and led them up a sweeping staircase. “This room, Teela,” she said, indicating a doorway, “is yours. I hope you’ll find everything you need. If not, there’s a bell pull by the bed. Jeeves will be happy to bring you anything you require.”
    “I’m fine, thank you very much,” Teela said.
    “Rest well,” Jarrett told her.
    Before she had quite closed her door, Jarrett had set his hands upon his wife’s waist and was leading her down the hall.
    A second later, she heard a door close with a softclick. The master was home. The mistress was in his arms.
    Teela
was
exhausted. She walked across the room with a giddy sense of excitement, so glad to be there.
    Warren was sending someone for her, of course.
    And when that time came, she would suffer again. But she wouldn’t ruin the excitement and wonder of now for what was threatened to come.
    She stretched out on the bed, glad of its softness, glad to sleep on a bed that wasn’t on a moving vessel. She closed her eyes. Miraculously, and very quickly, she slept.
    She awoke much later to a tap at her door. “Teela, guests will be arriving soon. Please come down whenever you’re ready!” Jarrett McKenzie called to her.
    “Thank you!” she returned.
    Sometime, even as she had slept, a servant had brought water, left a kettle to boil over the fire, and seen to it that her trunks had been brought up. Teela rose, washed and dressed swiftly, and left her room behind, anxious to see more of the house—and the guests who would soon fill it.
    Cimarron had been prepared that evening for entertaining. It was obvious from the moment Teela stepped from her upstairs guest room.
    The breezeway doors, leading to the lawn and river in front and down into stables and lawn and foliage in the rear, had been thrown open wide. Lanterns had been hung along the porches, adding soft light to that which burned from within the home. To either side of the main hall, the doors to parlors and sitting rooms had been cast open as well, making virtually one huge hall of all the downstairs rooms. Even as she came down the stairway, she could see clearly into the main parlor to her right.
    When she first saw the tall figure standing before the fire, she thought that she had come upon her host. The man stood with his legs slightly apart, feet firmly plantedupon the hardwood floor, hands folded idly behind his back, head slightly bowed as he stared into the flames. His shoulders were broad, his waist was narrow, and his height and physique were emphasized by the cut of the elegant black frock coat he wore, ruffled, snow white shirt beneath, the collar and sleeves visible from her distance. His jet black hair waved just below the collar of his coat. With the fine cut of his clothing, the dignity of his stance, he gave every appearance of an elegant, cultured man, a ruggedly handsome but civilized man … her host.
    Then he turned.
    Teela started, for though the resemblence to Jarrett McKenzie remained, this was not her host at all. Something was familiar in the face and yet not familiar. It was perhaps one of the most arresting faces she had ever seen, the skin bronze, eyes a startling, burning blue, cheekbones high and broad. He was white; he was Indian. He was a man definitely created by both races, and created extraordinarily well. From this first sight of him, she felt something, as if his very life and vitality were a physical portent, lightning in the space that separated them, something that snapped and sizzled like a whisper of smoldering fire. Her breath quickened as he returned her stare, as he studied her in turn. Then he smiled slowly, bitterly—mockingly. He knew her thoughts exactly. Knew that she felt a draw. Knew perhaps his own