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John moved slowly toward her, his wavering eyes never leaving Kaylene. “Why did you ask such a thing?” he asked warily. “Why are you acting this way? What have the savages done . . . said to you, to make you look at me as though I am a stranger? Why would you doubt that I am your father?”
He reached his arms out for her. “Aren’t you glad to see that I’m alive?” he said sadly.
Kaylene swallowed hard, torn with feelings for this man. Although throughout her childhood she found him unaffectionate, still she had thought that he was her father, and that alone was the reason she had loved him. And now?
“How did you come out of this alive after being left at the pit?” she said, taking another step away from him when he took one toward her.
She now knew without a doubt that he wasn’t her father. How could she ever forget that look in his eyes when she asked? A look that totally convicted him.
“A Texas rancher came by and found me,” John said, again smoothing a trickle of blood away from his neck with his fingers. He wiped the blood on one of his trouser legs. “The snake? It fled without attacking me. The rancher took me back to the carnival campsite. After I was strong enough, I rounded up my men to come and rescue you.”
His brows knitted into a dark frown. “And this is the thanks I get,” he grumbled. “My very own daughter treating me as though I am a stranger.”
“You know that I’m not your daughter,” Kaylene said, her voice breaking. “I saw your first reaction to my question. Tell me the truth. You took me in only because you knew you had another child who would benefit you. Isn’t that so? Please tell me the truth. Where are my true parents?”
“How could you know this?” John gasped out, again paling. He glared over at Fire Thunder. “Are he and his people psychics?”
Kaylene’s knees grew weak. She gasped and covered her mouth with trembling fingers. Tears came to her eyes as she turned her face away from the man who had deceived her in the worst way possible.
Fire Thunder reached out for John and grabbed him roughly by an arm. He gave him a shove ahead of him. “You have hurt my woman for the last time,” he grumbled out. “Go. I have a perfect place for you. You still have to pay for stealing my sister, and for, in part, being responsible for Good Bear’s death. You must pay for what you did today to my people, and for what you have done to my woman all of her life.”
“I ain’t responsible for all those things!” John shouted. He stumbled as Fire Thunder gave him another shove when he tried to look at him. “I’ve come for Kaylene. I was going to release her from captivity! Now you, you damn savage, you’ve put all sorts of nonsense in her head! She sides with savages?” he laughed nervously. “Perhaps that’s best. After seeing her today, and how she took your side against me, she ain’t nothing better than a savage herself.”
Fire Thunder reached out and grabbed John by the back of the neck. He stopped him and turned him slowly around to face him. “You listen well, white man, to what I say, or I will hand you over to my people to let them choose how you die,” he hissed out. “It might be by removing your limbs, one by one. Or it might be instantly at the end of a rope. I would think you would prefer my sort of punishment. So, white man, close your mouth and stop saying things that get you deeper into trouble.”
“You said a while ago that Kaylene was your woman,” John said, eyes wide, and cowering beneath Fire Thunder’s steely, dark, threatening stare. “What did you mean by that?”
“She is going to be my wife,” Fire Thunder said, smiling smugly when he saw the look of utter horror in the depths of John’s eyes.
Kaylene moved to Fire Thunder’s side, Midnight beside her. Her eyes were red from crying.
It was the fact that she had been forced to live a lie that hurt. She doubted she would ever know her true parents.
“I am starting a new life here with Fire Thunder,” she said, clasping Fire Thunder’s arm possessively. “But I would appreciate it if you would tell me the full truth about everything. My memory only holds you, Mother, and the carnival. Won’t you tell me my true identity?”
“You are as crazy as him,” John mumbled, nodding toward Fire Thunder. “You belong together.”
“Then you still refuse to admit to the truth?” Kaylene asked, swallowing back another strong urge to cry.
“You’re so smart, figure it out for yourself,” John said, his lips tugging into a slow, mocking smile.
Kaylene turned her eyes away from him and closed them. A part of her cried out inside her, saying that surely this man was her father! Surely she had imagined the guilt in his eyes when she had first asked him whether he was or not? Surely she had only thought she had heard him ask if the Kickapoo were psychics? If he said that, he had condemned himself, twofold.
Yet now he seemed honestly hurt by her accusation. Oh, Lord above, was she wrong? Would she ever know?
Then the thought of her mother came to her. The woman she had called mother all of her life, who was as gentle as a spring breeze, surely would tell her the truth.
Kaylene would go and ask her. She would not rest now until she had all of the answers.
She composed herself and followed Fire Thunder, unsure of what his plans were for this man she despised, whether or not he was her father. He was a lowdown, evil man. He deserved the worst punishment for all that he had done throughout his life, to all of the children that he had enslaved at his carnival, and to her and Midnight.
She was surprised that Midnight had not killed him when he had had the chance. He had hated John Shelton for as long as Kaylene could remember.
Ever since Midnight had taken that first whipping with John Shelton’s sharp-tongued whip.
Kaylene’s eyes widened when she finally realized just where Fire Thunder was taking John . . . to the cage that she had been in, where Kaylene had spent the most horrible hours of her life.
Fire Thunder was going to make John know how it felt, also. And Fire Thunder was angry enough at this man that he just might leave him there, to die!
