No, what he really needed, badly, was to get the hell away from Amanda Lennox. The woman touched him, disturbed him in ways no other woman of any goddamn color ever had or ever would. Maybe with some time, some distance...
Nah, probably not. Jake figured he had about as much chance of forgetting his prissy white princess as he had of being crowned King of England tomorrow. While he could leave her—and he would, damn soon!—that didn't change the fact that he'd never be able to forget her. A part of her would always be inside of him. He had an uneasy feeling that an even bigger part of him would be left behind. With her. Always.
His scowl darkened. How long had he been in the saloon? A half hour? An hour? He didn't know. The ruckus of his thoughts had made him lose all track of time. Had Amanda waited for him like he'd told her to? And if she hadn't...?
Jake reached into the inside pocket of his vest for a couple of coins. What he found instead was the white linen handkerchief he'd forgotten he'd put there. He tried to ignore the way the cloth seared into his fingertips. With a sigh, he reached past it and retrieved a couple of coins, which he tossed onto the bar. He then picked up his knife and shoved it back into place. The sheath slapped his outer thigh as he stalked toward the saloon's double doors.
He'd no more swung one of the doors open when Jake felt something else. Something as familiar as it was unwelcome.
Every eye in the place was on him. He knew it without looking, could feel the stares boring into his rigidly held back. Their gazes felt like crawly things on his skin. Some of the gazes were hostile, others were cautious, others merely curious.
Not a single one was friendly.
Jake was used to attracting attention wherever he went. It had ceased to bother him years ago. So why they hell was it bothering him now?
While he tried to overlook his resentment as he pushed through the doors and stepped onto the sunlit boardwalk, Jake knew damn well where his discomfort stemmed from. Amanda Lennox had planted a seed in his mind, and without his permission—Jesus, without his knowledge!—the blossom had flourished.
From the start you've told me that all white people, even without knowing you, automatically label you a savage. Hasn't it ever occurred to you that you go out of your way to give them that impression?
Did he? No, of course not. At least, he didn't do it consciously. It was just that... well, it was hard for a man to walk in two different worlds. One, the Indian's world, he'd decided long ago he didn't belong in; the other, the white man's world, had made that decision for him. Amanda didn't know anything about that. She may think she did, but she didn't, couldn't. Not really.
But was she right?
Jake narrowed his eyes against the glare of sunlight as he picked out the white, tethered to a post in front of the saloon. Compared to the other horses tied there, the one without the saddle looked out of place. It attracted attention. So did the knife at his belt, the moccasins on his feet.
Unconsciously, he fingered the strand of long black hair that fell forward on his shoulder. He felt the thin braid graze his wrist, felt the tickle of the small brown feather against his skin. He hadn't tied the bandanna around his forehead today, but he might as well have.
He could see by the looks he was getting that he appeared every bit the ruthless savage these white people had him pegged for.
Was she right?
Jake gritted his teeth and stalked toward his horse. And he thought that... yes, Goddammit to hell and back, Amanda was right! So what? It didn't change a thing!
Except maybe the way he looked at himself. The problem was, Jake had always taken great pains to never look at himself too hard or too often—and he was doing both now. Damn. Maybe this realization changed a hell of a lot more than he'd thought.
Distance, he thought as he untethered the white and vaulted lithely onto its back. Yes, distance. All he needed was some time away from Amanda Lennox and everything would be fine. His sense of perspective would come back. He'd start to look at himself in the same light he always had. He'd...
Oh, who the hell was he trying to fool? Himself? If so, it wasn't working. He wasn't stupid, and he wasn't drunk. He knew damn well that nothing, nothing would ever be the same again. Everything had changed the second that prissy Bostonian princess had waded into his life—or, more accurately, the day he'd waded into hers. Damn, but she'd turned his world inside out!
Jake guided his horse in the direction he'd left Amanda and the kid. He knew before h
e'd reached the spot that they were gone. He wasn't surprised. It wasn't as though she'd ever done a thing he'd told her to. Right from the start, she'd opposed him. He would be lying if he said that wasn't one of the first things that had attracted him to her, the spunk he sensed beneath the cowardice, the passion beneath the ice.
It didn't take a lot of brain power to know where they'd gone. He'd learned the whereabouts of Edward Bannister's house his first two minutes in the saloon. Bannister was the richest miner in Pony. His residence was hardly a secret.
With a reluctant sigh, Jake turned his mount around and picked his way toward the house that sprawled out over what looked like the entire north end of town. The closer he came to it, the more uncomfortable Jake felt. That the house was an eyesore—so out of place it was laughable—didn't seem to matter. That a man had the wealth to build such an eyesore in the first place did. Compared to the rickety, clapboard buildings lining Main Street, that house was a mansion!
The hell of it was, it was too damn easy for Jake to imagine a woman like Amanda Lennox gliding through those spacious, expensively furnished rooms. He groaned and thought he could almost hear a silk hem rustling around her shapely legs as she walked, could almost smell exotic bath oils—the names of which he couldn't even pronounce—clinging to her forbidden white skin.
Oh, yeah, she belonged in a house like that, all right. She'd been born to it. She deserved to wear the kind of clothes a man like Edward Bannister could give her, to live in the kind luxury only a man as wealthy as Bannister could afford to keep her in. She deserved the best and...
Hell, Jacob Blackhawk Chandler certainly wasn't that!
"Again, Mr. Bannister, I thank you," Amanda said, and held out her hand to the man.
Edward smiled congenially and, bending slightly pressed her knuckles to his lips. His mouth felt warm and moist. Too warm and moist, Amanda thought as another mouth came to mind—a mouth that was hot and searing, a mouth that could make her blood fire when it grazed much more intimate parts of her than the back of her hands.
"Are you sure you won't reconsider staying?"