T'on Ma by Magnolia Belle

Lana followed, she wondered how he knew. For that matter, how had he found her so quickly? The only answer was that he had been this way before. With stolen horses? Or captives? She wondered.
    They rode for two more hours when exhaustion of both people and horses forced them to stop. Two Hawks found a secluded place and slid off his horse. He walked over to Lana and helped her down. Pulling her to him, he kissed her as she wrapped her arms around him.
    "You came for me," Lana whispered.
    "Of course. You are my heart."
    "I suppose Nathan got you?"
    When he nodded, she stepped out of his embrace and over to her brother. "Nathan, I was never so happy to see you as I was tonight." She hugged her brother tightly.
    "You scared us to death," he told her, and then looked behind her as Christina walked over to them.
    Lana turned around and smiled. "Oh, Christina, this is my brother, Nathan." The two nodded at each other. "And this is Centas Yi."
    "Hello," Christina greeted them both. "Thank you for not leaving me behind."
    "You're welcome," Nathan told her, "but we're not out of this yet."
    "No. We need to rest so we'll be ready for tomorrow," Lana agreed. Nathan had the only blanket, and the night had grown cold. He handed the blanket to Lana, assuming the two women would share it. To his surprise, Lana handed it to Christina.
    "You take this. I'll sleep next to him," she nodded toward Two Hawks. "I'll be plenty warm." Christina only smiled tiredly at her as she took the blanket.
    Two Hawks had lain down and, when Lana came over, he raised his hand, inviting her to lie down beside him. He put his arm around her as she laid her head on his shoulder and her arm across his chest. She reached up and kissed him once, twice. She felt safe in his embrace, and he felt relieved finally holding her. They both fell asleep in a few short minutes.
    Christina lay down a few feet away and settled under the blanket. She was almost asleep when she looked across at Nathan, futilely trying to fall asleep in spite of being cold. Taking pity on him, she called softly. "Nathan?"
    "What?"
    "I only need half of this." She waved the edge of the blanket to make her point.
    "That's all right."
    "Would you get over here? You'll freeze otherwise."
    After admitting that she was right, he gratefully moved to lie beside her underneath the blanket. The sleeping arrangements would have seemed highly inappropriate, except that everyone was too exhausted to care.
    Nathan awoke a few hours later, on his side, snuggled against Christina's back, with his arm across her waist. "Oh, excuse me," he muttered as he hurriedly sat up.
    "Don't worry about it. We both kept warm, didn't we?"
    At the sound of their voices, Two Hawks and Lana woke up, still tightly wrapped up with each other. Lana sat up, stretching to get the stiffness out of her back.
    "I guess we'd better hit the trail," she yawned. "I wish we had some food."
    "I might have a little left," Nathan said. He dug through his saddlebag and produced the last of his mother's cornbread. Dividing it up as equally as he could, he passed it around.
    "Here. That's all of it."
    "We'll be home soon," Lana encouraged him. "Then we can make ourselves sick from eating too much." She got him to chuckle over that.
    They mounted up and began a new day of trying to stay ahead of, or possibly even lose, their trackers.
    "Christina?" Lana called over her shoulder after they had been on the trail for a while. "Where are you from? I mean, when did you get captured? Are your folks homesteaders, too?"
    "The Apache attacked my family's wagon train. They killed my parents and took me captive. They almost brought my little brother, too, but he put up such a fuss at seeing Ma killed that they killed him instead."
    "I am so sorry to hear that," Lana sympathized. "How long had you been captive?"
    "About three days before you got there."
    "A wagon train this late in the fall?" Nathan joined the conversation. "Where were you headed?"
    "A new