A Love Forbidden (7 page)

Jack lifted a hand to silence her and turned to Jesse, who had halted at Shiloh’s side. “So, Nuaru, do you now let a woman speak for you?”

Jesse smiled and shrugged. “Remember, I’m only her escort. It was her wish to pay you the visit. And, as you can see, she speaks very well all by herself, without any assistance from me.”

The Ute chief’s mouth quirked in grudging admission. “That she does. I don’t know many white women who are quite so forthright, though.”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Shiloh interjected just then, turning to Jesse, “could you bring me my saddlebags?”

“Glad to be of service, ma’am,” he said with an edge of mockery in his voice, then promptly turned and headed back to the horses.

His lips quirked in amusement, Captain Jack watched Jesse walk away, then riveted his attention back to Shiloh. “You’re a bold one. I’ve heard tales about red-haired white women.”

“And all of them complimentary, I’m sure,” Shiloh softly muttered.

The Ute cocked his head. “What did you say?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.” She plastered on her most winning smile. “As leader of your band, you make all the important decisions for them. So, I’ve come to ask your permission for the children to attend the Agency school. I’m a professionally educated teacher, and I’ve many exciting plans to discuss with you—”

Jesse sauntered up just then, and Captain Jack immediately turned his full attention on him. “Though I told Meeker I’d loan you as her escort, knowing full well how I feel about the white man’s school, I thought you’d have done a better job of convincing her not to come.”

“I warned her you wouldn’t be pleased, but she insisted on coming anyway,” Jesse said, apparently not at all daunted by Jack’s flare of anger. “Out of courtesy and hospitality, the least you could do is hear her out. Besides,” he added, holding up the full saddlebags, “she brought gifts.”

Jack eyed the saddlebags with thinly disguised disdain. “It’ll take more than a few trinkets for me to send the children to the school. Unlike some of my brothers, I’m not so cheaply bought.”

“Nonetheless,” Shiloh said, “there’s no harm done bringing gifts for the women and children. It’s my way of introducing myself and offering my friendship.”

The Ute chief stepped aside and indicated the entrance to his tepee. “You are welcome to visit as a friend. Please, enter my home and share some food and drink.”

Shiloh nodded. Then, lifting the tent flap, she stooped a bit and walked inside.

A half hour later, they were on their way back to the Agency. Though he and Shiloh had been able to visit with Captain Jack and his family, sharing a meal of fry bread made from some of their annuity flour and a pot of rich venison stew from which they all ate with horn spoons, the Ute chief refused to allow her to meet any of the others. He accepted the trinkets she offered, promising to distribute them and credit her as the gift giver, all the while denying her even that small way of making contact with his people.

Jesse knew Shiloh was frustrated, but he had repeatedly warned her that her overtures would be rejected. That was exactly what had happened, and likely would continue to happen. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for her. She meant well. Her concern for the People was heartfelt and genuine.

He just couldn’t seem to get it through her head that the problem was far bigger and more complex than a simple need to educate the poor, ignorant savages. She was, in actuality, a helpless pawn in the ever-widening catastrophe that was the annihilation of the Indian way of life. And he, too, felt more helpless with each passing day. Helpless and caught up in it nonetheless, as if he were trying to swim against a raging torrent. A torrent that would soon sweep him—and all that he held dear—away.

The difference between them, however, was that he knew the fate that ultimately awaited the Utes, and had still chosen to remain, to stand with his people no matter what the outcome. The people who had always accepted him just as he was, welcoming him with open arms. What Jesse didn’t want was for Shiloh to get entangled in it all. She had tried to protect him once. In return, he owed her that much at the very least.

Problem was, how to get the stubborn little redhead to admit defeat and go back to where she belonged, where she’d be safe. As they rode along, he shot her a covert glance.

She was paying him no mind, and instead gazed at the snow-covered peaks, the dark green pines piercing the bright blue, cloud-strewn sky, and the ice-clogged river on their left. Her expression was one of delight and wonderment. It was obvious to anyone who cared to observe that Shiloh loved this land the Utes called the Shining Mountains.

Her cheeks and tip of her nose were pink with the cold, but it only made her seem prettier. Her deep auburn hair, where it peeked out from the scarf she had wrapped around her head, glinted with many shades in the sunlight. And her form, even bundled up against the chill weather, was most appealingly female.

Jesse marveled at what an attractive woman the coltish, almost homely tomboy had grown into. He had once thought her sister the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. But her beauty, he soon learned, only touched the surface. Shiloh’s beauty went far deeper.

Her face had glowed with pleasure as she’d met and talked briefly with Captain Jack’s children. When she’d explained how to use the little top she’d given to Jack’s son, Jesse caught a glimpse of her love of teaching. And she was still as plucky as she’d been all those years ago. That was more than evident in the way she’d stood up to Jack. Though she may not have realized it, she had already won the Ute chief’s respect. Jesse suspected, given enough time, Shiloh would achieve the same results tomorrow with the other two chiefs who lived even closer to the Agency.

Had it been more than a coincidence that they, after all these years and separated by hundreds of miles, had crossed paths again? Had the Creator willed it that Jesse should repay his debt and free himself, once and for all, from the final link binding him to his white blood? For Shiloh and their youthful friendship were surely the last pleasant memory he had of his ill-fated interactions with his father’s people.

His first instincts had been right. He needed to get her to leave the White River Agency. And the sooner the better.

“So, how did it really go?” Josie asked that evening after supper, as the two women visited in Shiloh’s bedroom. From her comfortable perch on her big trunk, Shiloh glanced up from the scarf she was knitting and across to where her friend sat in the room’s only chair.

“Pretty much exactly as I told it to your father,” she replied. “I saw no reason to leave anything out.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean how it went with Jack,” Josie said with a giggle. “I meant how did it go with Jesse?”

Shiloh could feel the warmth creep up her neck and into her cheeks. She looked back down at her knitting and realized she had just dropped a stitch.

“It went exactly as I suspected it would. He pretty much told me I didn’t understand anything about the Utes or their plight. That I was a do-gooder and out of touch with reality.” She expelled a weary sigh. “And he didn’t help me at all with Captain Jack.”

“Not at all?” Josie asked, her voice tinged with disbelief.

“Well, he fetched the saddlebag of trinkets for me,” Shiloh admitted reluctantly, “and told Jack I was capable of speaking for myself. And he also,” she added, “told Jack he should hear me out.”

As if in thought, her friend pursed her lips, then nodded. “See, he did help you.” She grinned. “Oh, I just knew it was the right thing to do, getting Jesse to be your escort!”

“So, you
did
have more of a hand in this than you first claimed.” Shiloh narrowed her eyes. “I thought so.”

Josie shrugged. “I think he’s sweet on you.”

“What?” Shiloh gaped at her in astonishment. “Who’s sweet on . . .”

As the realization dawned that Josie was speaking of Jesse, Shiloh vehemently shook her head. “No. You’re just an incurable romantic and seeing things that aren’t there. Not only does Jesse now hate me for some reason, but he’s five years older than me!”

“My, my,” the other woman said, clucking her tongue, “nearly old enough to be your father, he is.”

“Oh, come on, Josie. I didn’t mean it was as bad as that. I guess when I was twelve, someone seventeen seemed so much older. Like I was a child and he was—”

“Almost a grown man?”

Shiloh nodded. “Yes. That’s it.”

“So now he’s what, twenty-six, and you’re soon to be twenty-one? Not so wide an age difference anymore, is it? You both being all grown up now.”

With Josie putting their age difference in the proper perspective, Shiloh couldn’t help feeling like a fool. Still, it didn’t really matter. Jesse wasn’t now nor had he ever been interested in her in “that way.”

“So what if our ages don’t much matter anymore?” she demanded. “It doesn’t change the fact that Jesse Blackwater likely blames me for what happened to him when he worked at our ranch.”

Josie leaned forward to rest her forearms on her thighs, clasped her hands, and cocked her head. “I always suspected he had a story—a difficult one, I mean. What exactly happened all those years ago? If you don’t mind me asking?”

She supposed it didn’t matter, telling about Jesse’s whipping and all that had led up to it. And if it would help Josie understand the basis of what seemed to be Jesse’s antipathy toward her these days, then it might squelch further romantic imaginings about them.

“No, I don’t mind telling you,” Shiloh said. “As I mentioned before, when I was twelve, Jesse came to work for us as a ranch hand . . .”

It didn’t take long to finish the story, and she tried her best to downplay her sister’s considerable role in the event. Not that Shiloh didn’t still hold Jordan fully responsible. She just felt her sister’s behavior was family business and no one else’s.

“Well, that explains the scars I saw on his back this past summer,” Josie said when Shiloh had finished the tale. “And a lot, perhaps, of the basis for his hostility toward the Agency staff, and especially my father. But I wonder if just that one incident could’ve soured Jesse as badly as it has?”

Josie was beginning to delve a bit more deeply into Jesse’s past than Shiloh was willing to reveal. “I never saw Jesse again after that day, until the Bear Dance,” she said with a bemused smile and shrug. “A lot could’ve happened to him in those ensuing nine years.”

“Yes, I suppose so.” Josie paused. “Do you know if his father was white or his mother?”

Shiloh hesitated. She supposed she could answer that question and not tread too closely into more private matters.

“His father was white, a trapper. His mother was a Ute. He traded a pack load of furs for her. Never married her, though.”

Her friend pondered that a moment. “I wonder if Jesse’s mother was related to someone in Captain Jack’s camp? Persune mentioned that Jesse was quickly accepted by their people.”

“Maybe. If so, I’m glad. Everyone needs to feel they belong somewhere.”

That ready acceptance would also explain Jesse’s passion and commitment to the White River Utes, Shiloh thought. If they were actual relatives, they were probably his only remaining family. And considering that Jesse had dearly loved his mother, who had died when he was fourteen, and he had hated his abusive father . . .

She wondered if her knowledge of his past was yet another reason for his hostility toward her. Because she knew things of which he did not wish to be reminded and did not want spread around as a source of gossip or ridicule. Not that she would ever do that to him, but she supposed he didn’t know that. Didn’t know
her
anymore.

“Does it bother you that he’s a half-breed?”

Her friend’s query jerked Shiloh from her musings. “What? What did you just ask?”

Josie shrugged. “I wondered if his being a half-breed bothered you. Does it?”

Shiloh frowned in puzzlement. “Bother me? In what way?”

“In a romantic way, of course. That was the original topic of this conversation, wasn’t it?”

Fine. Just fine. Josie was back to that again.