Amanda was coming to. The bone-jarring, bouncing pace the Indian was setting made the blood throb in her head where he'd struck her. One muscular arm held her securely against his bare chest. When she inhaled, she could smell him. He smelled of the outdoors, leather and horse, and another odor she did not recognize. The sight of his bronzed skin around her middle sickened her, and she fought the nausea that threatened to erupt over them both.

This could not be happening to her! One look at his sun-bronzed arm assured her it was so. Captured by Indians! It seemed preposterous in this enlightened year of 1860, yet here she was being carried off to God-knew-where, by some hideously painted savage. True, there had been stories of captures as they traveled west but somehow she'd never envisioned it happening to her. Amanda wondered what had happened to the others.

Were they all dead? If they had taken her, had they also taken Candice?

She looked ahead at the other racing braves but didn't see her sister on any of their horses. Was she the only survivor? Why would they keep her alive, if the rest were dead? The stage driver just seemed to go berserk all of a sudden, yelling obscenities at the Apaches and firing his six-shooter. Then, Amanda remembered her part in the mêlée. She hadn't helped matters she guessed. It was only her fear that the Indian meant to harm Candice when he drew his knife that had prompted her reaction.

For all their fierce faces and stoic looks, they had not shown any real open hostility towards them. The leader had only asked that their weapons be thrown down. To rob them might have been their sole intent. Not knowing this for sure, Amanda struck out with the pointed end of her parasol at the advancing brave wielding the knife. After that, things happened so rapidly, she couldn't keep their sequence straight in her mind.

Dear Lord, what has happened to Candice, Bessie, Matthew, Damon?

Her mind whirled with anxiety and fear. Instinctively she knew it was the big Apache leader on the paint pony who held her. She'd never forget that sense of recognition when their eyes first met and held. Amanda thought he'd felt it too. It was the oddest thing she'd ever experienced. She knew she'd never met or seen him before. He would have been impossible to forget. Dazed, she'd watched as he slipped off his horse and started toward her. What had been on his mind?

Surely, it had been an easy thing for the brave holding the knife, to deflect the parasol with one swipe of his hand. As the parasol swung in the direction of the Apache leader, he'd made a grab for it. In one swift motion, he'd turned her around and pulled her into his chest, pinning her against him with the parasol itself. She had felt the strength and the heat of him along the entire length of her body. Never in her life had she been so aware of a man before. Besides being terrified, a tremendous weakness in her knees would have caused her to fall at his feet had he not been holding her in his vice-like grip. When the shooting and yelling started, he must have hit her on the head, pulled her over his horse, and galloped away with her. If they had not taken Candice, why had they taken only her, and for what reason?

Overwhelming fear gripped her. Oh, why had she ever come out here?  What made her think she could do this? Had she condemned them all to a terrible fate? Why hadn't she listened to the warnings as they crossed the country that three women traveling alone, entering into Apache Territory, were either very foolish or very desperate. At the time, they'd been a little of both. Now she may be paying for it with their lives.

God help her!