Chieftain (Historical Romance) (18 page)

M
aggie threw
on her heavy woolen cape, rushed out of the schoolhouse and hurried across the parade ground. Teeth chattering from the cold—and from rising anticipation—she rounded the corner of the bakery and dashed the last few steps to the teacher’s quarters with Pistol racing ahead of her.

At the door she pointed a finger at Pistol and said to the wolfhound, “You stay right here on the porch and guard us with your life!”

She didn’t wait for his response, but opened the door and burst inside on a blast of frigid air. She slammed the door in Pistol’s face, locked it, turned about and leaned back against it.

She looked across the room and felt her breath grow short, her cheeks get warm. Shanaco was sitting up in bed, sheet resting at his waist, raven hair loose and touching his bare shoulders. He was smiling. A lazy, sensual smile that instantly burned away any traces of lingering cold.

Maggie shrugged out of her long cape, hung it on the coat tree and immediately started undressing. Too eager to bother with being her usual orderly self, she discarded the garments where she stood. In seconds she was as naked as Eve in the garden and the handsome man in bed was staring fixedly at her, a hot light burning in his eyes.

Knowing that
he liked her hair down, Maggie took out the pins as she crossed to the bed. She shook her head about and allowed the long tresses to spill around her bare shoulders.

“Miss me?” she said, and put a knee on the mattress. Shanaco threw back the covers.

“What kept you?” he teased.

To which she smartly rejoined, “You going to talk all afternoon?” And she quickly got into the bed.

Shanaco laughed heartily, kissed her and drew her into his arms. Each was so hot for the other, they had no time for sweet preliminaries. At once Maggie was beneath Shanaco, sighing with pleasure as he swiftly came into her. They made ardent, anxious love, kicking off all the covers, rocking the bed, climaxing almost immediately. Quickly sated, they sagged limply into the softness of the mattress.

After only a few moments’ rest, they made love again.

This time in a slow, dreamy fashion. It began with kisses. Soft kisses. Sweet kisses. Worshipful kisses. Slow, burning kisses. Long, drugging kisses. Hot, invasive kisses. Fierce, demanding kisses.

Throughout the ever-changing kisses, they kept switching positions. First Maggie’s head rested on the pillow while Shanaco leaned over her, kissing her, his lips slanting across hers, his tongue tasting and teasing. Then they languidly rolled over and it was Shanaco’s dark head on the pillow and Maggie leaning over him, kissing him, licking his lips, thrusting her tongue into his mouth.

Then
they’d change again.

And yet again.

Until Shanaco, lying on his back, head resting on the pillow and Maggie pressing kisses to his lips said softly, “I don’t think I can hold out much longer, sweetheart. I want to be inside you. Now.”

“I want it, too,” she whispered, and made a move to stretch out on her back.

“No,” he said, gently gripping her arms, stopping her. “I’m lazy today, sweetheart. Let me lie here and you get on top.” Maggie gave him a questioning look. He smiled. “Climb astride me, Maggie, and do the honors.”

Eager to do any and everything with this handsome lover of her dreams, Maggie agilely rose up onto her knees, threw a leg over and sank down onto his pelvis. Her positioning was perfect. Just right. His awesome erection was snugly fitted between her open thighs, its heavy hardness reflexively surging up to seek her warmth.

Maggie exhaled heavily, clasped Shanaco’s ribs, settled herself comfortably upon him and smiled down at him. “May I play for just a while?”

A muscle danced in his lean jaw. He raised his arms over his head and, as she had done the night before, wrapped long fingers around the rungs of the iron bedstead.

“I’m yours
to do with as you please,” he said. “Play. Experiment. Torture me. But don’t make me wait
too
long.”

Maggie nodded, slowly bent forward, flipped her hair down over her head so that it spilled forward into his face and across his shoulders and torso. She lowered her lips to his chest. While the silky ends of her hair tickled him pleasantly, she began brushing kisses to his naked flesh. She loved the way his body responded.

The muscles in his powerful chest and bulging biceps tautened and his abdomen tightened until it became concave.

Heady with feminine power, Maggie teased and tormented Shanaco, hearing him groan, feeling his body vibrate as if it were a fine instrument and she the talented artist.

She unhurriedly swished her hair back and forth against his chest. She kissed, licked and nipped at the smooth bronzed skin. She boldly bussed a circle around a flat brown nipple and heard him emit a strangled sound from deep in the back of his throat.

Placing an angel-soft kiss on that masculine nipple, Maggie raised her head. She sat up, raked her hair back off her face and gazed at Shanaco with a wicked gleam in her eyes. She rolled her hips provocatively and slid slowly up and down his throbbing erection, teasing him, toying with him.

She saw
a vein on his forehead stand out and pulse, watched his jaw grow rigid with the fierce clenching of his teeth. She took pity and extended a hand to him.

Shanaco released his hold on the bedstead, let his left arm drop to his side and gave her his right hand. Maggie took that hand in both of her own and guided it down to where she sat atop him. She released him.

“Touch me, Shanaco,” she whispered. “Touch me and tell me. Tell me if I am ready.” She placed her hands on her spread thighs and waited.

Shanaco agilely rolled his shoulders up off the mattress and sat up. He wrapped one long arm around Maggie’s waist, laid her back against that supporting arm and put his hand between her legs. Looking directly into her eyes, he dipped his fore and middle fingers into the silky wetness flowing freely from her. He caressed her while she squirmed and sighed and anxiously rubbed herself against his loving hand.

Shanaco toyed with her until his fingers were soaked with her liquid heat. Then he took his hand away and spread that moisture over the tip of his erection until it gleamed wetly.

“You are,” he said huskily, “almost as hot as I.”

He lay back down and folded an arm beneath his head, determined to have her make love to him. He swallowed hard when Maggie rose up onto her knees, wrapped her fingers around him and carefully guided the gleaming tip of his throbbing shaft up just inside her.

She then
let go, gripped his ribs lightly and slowly, carefully lowered herself down onto him.

When he was fully inside her, she released her breath and began the slow, rhythmic rolling of her hips.

“How’s that?” she whispered, squeezing him artfully, thrusting her pelvis forward, her breasts swaying seductively with her movements.

“Ah, Maggie, promise you’ll stay right where you are all afternoon,” he murmured, his eyes glazed with passion, his hands again wrapped around the rungs of the bedstead.

“I promise,” she said, and meant it.

But too soon incredible heat and joy washed over them both. They moved together as if they were one body; she rocking and rotating her hips, he surging and thrusting his pelvis. She breathlessly lunging. He zealously plunging. She setting the pace. He patiently following. Loving each other, thrilling each other. Pleasing each other until finally the splendor was too great. The pleasure too intense.

“Shanaco…I…I…can’t…wait…” Maggie gasped, her burning body no longer under her control.

“Let go, sweetheart,” he murmured, huskily, taking his hands from the bedstead to hold her hips. “I can’t wait, either. Let it come, baby, let it come.”

Then he groaned in his own shuddering release as Maggie cried out his name in ecstasy.

“All that
we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.”

M
aggie smiled dreamily as she murmured those words. She then raised her head and gazed fondly at Shanaco.

They lay stretched out on the bed, talking quietly, touching, kissing as the hour grew late. Both sleepy. Both hating to say good-night.

“I must admit to being quite impressed that afternoon at the poetry picnic when you recited those lines from Poe,” she said, touching Shanaco’s smooth bare chest with her fingertips and feeling it all the way down to her toes.

Shanaco covered her hand with his own. “Had I chosen to do so, teacher, I could have quoted the entire poem.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she replied, freeing her hand to again lightly stroke the granite muscles of his chest.

“From the time I was a small child,” he said, “my mother taught me to appreciate poetry and literature. She had no books, but she had memorized favorite poems and stories and recited them to me. Then when I went to live in the white man’s world, I bought books, books and more books.”

Maggie
listened, entranced, as he spoke of the genteel woman who had raised him and was responsible for his being much more than a fierce warrior like his Comanche father.

When Shanaco finally fell silent, Maggie asked softly, “Was your mother content to live among the Comanches? Didn’t she want to go home?”

“She was home.”

“You know what I mean.”

“She was given the opportunity and turned it down.” He lifted a thick lock of Maggie’s heavy hair and fanned his fingers through it. “One morning she was with several women at Lagunas Sabinas. They were getting water from the creek when a trio of Texas Rangers came upon them. The Rangers immediately saw that my mother was white. They offered to take her back to her family. She refused to go.”

“Were you there with her that morning?”

“No. Miles away with my father on a buffalo hunt.”

“That’s why she wouldn’t go with the Rangers,” Maggie reasoned aloud. “She couldn’t bear leaving you.”

“That was not the only reason, Maggie. She loved my father very much. She was his only wife and they were devoted. They even died within hours of each other.”

“Were
they…?”

“Killed by the whites? Yes, they were. A surprise attack in the Red River campaign.”

“How awful. I’m so sorry, Shanaco.”

“At least they died together.”

Continuing to stroke his chest, she ventured, “And since their deaths, you’ve lived in the white man’s world.”

“Off and on since I turned sixteen.”

“Have you ever looked up your mother’s people? They’re your blood kin so surely you…”

Shanaco’s eyes darkened to the color of smoke and he interrupted her. “I did visit them once, when I was eighteen. I learned from the Bureau of Indian Affairs where they lived. I rode down to see them that summer.”

Maggie waited breathlessly.

Shanaco said no more.

Curious, she prompted, “And? Your grandparents? Aunts or uncles? Were they there? Did they…?”

“The entire Cooper family was there,” he said in a low monotone. “My mother’s father and mother, her two brothers and their wives and children. All living on the Cooper farm six miles from the settlement of Decatur.” Shanaco paused, toyed with a strand of Maggie’s hair and smiled sardonically. “I was not welcome. I introduced myself, but the family wanted nothing to do with me.” He laughed and added, “They strongly requested that I leave and never return. My maternal grandfather backed up that request with a loaded rifle.”

Maggie made
a face of horror. She felt her heart squeeze as she envisioned the young Shanaco being turned away by his own family. “How cruel!”

He shrugged bare shoulders. “No matter. I had a loving father and mother and the greatest grandfather a boy could ever have.”

“Tell me about Gray Wolf,” she said, but her eyelids were growing heavy and she couldn’t stifle a yawn.

“I’ve kept you up too late. You’re sleepy.”

Maggie laid her head on his shoulder and snuggled close.

“A little,” she murmured, then closed her eyes, sighed and fell asleep.

He didn’t.

Shanaco stayed awake for a long time.

He held Maggie in his arms and gazed at her while she slept. For a time he smiled, captivated by the sight of her beautiful face in repose. He had never felt this way before. Had never loved a woman the way he loved this one. Would never love another. Would always love her.

His smile fled and his eyes clouded with despair. His jaw hardened. In a couple of days he would have to leave her.

Never to see her again.

It would be the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.

The fort and
the reservation continued to gossip about all that had happened. The troopers were angry that Shanaco had managed to escape them. The Indians were glad he had gotten away.

The colonel’s distraught daughter had not left her quarters, refused to get out of bed. Except for mysterious nocturnal visits from the regimental surgeon and provost marshall, no one had called on her.

The worried Margaret Tullison was looking after Lois, attempting to calm the near hysterical young woman. And getting the sharp edge of Lois’s tongue for her efforts. Weeping almost constantly, Lois was angry that Daniel Wilde had not bothered to visit, had not even stopped by to check on her.

Whispered rumors of an early Saturday morning meeting with Major Courteen in attendance had begun circulating through the fort by midweek. But no one, not even the troopers, put much credence to the story. If it were true they would have heard what had taken place in such a meeting.

Besides, the major was in the regimental hospital, gravely ill. It was said that he had been in and out of consciousness and had now slipped into a deep coma.

For Maggie and Shanaco the days and nights went flying by—precious hours too quickly slipping away like the sands pouring through an hourglass.

Maggie knew that Shanaco must soon leave. She knew as well that it would break her heart to see him go. If she lived to be an old woman, she would never forget him. And she would never feel about another man the way she felt about him.

Never had
she been as happy as she had these past few days, shut away from the world with this magnificent man, unknowing and uncaring what was going on outside.

Maggie was sure that Shanaco had been happy here, too.

She couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of pride in realizing that she had, in less than one unforgettable week, done what no one else—white or Comanche—had managed. She had tamed the mighty Shanaco. The silent, sullen warrior who had ridden onto the fort that sunny October morning now talked and laughed with ease. This once fierce war chief was, with her, the gentlest of men.

Dazzled by each other, they made love often.

Shanaco patiently taught the eager Maggie all he knew about sensual pleasure. It was, for them both, undiluted joy to make love the minute Maggie returned from her morning classes. And then again after the evening meal as a cold winter dusk fell outside. And especially in the silence of midnight while the rest of the fort was sleeping.

After the loving, Maggie relished lying in Shanaco’s strong arms to sleep. Yet there were times she didn’t sleep, couldn’t. She lay awake against him, dreading the nights ahead when he would no longer be here. Times when she would fall asleep only to wake up in the middle of night, gaze at him, and feel tears filling her eyes.

On a cold
Wednesday evening—Shanaco’s sixth night at Maggie’s cottage—the two of them sat before the fire at bedtime. There was no light in the room save the dancing flames in the grate.

Shanaco, bare-chested but with a large white towel wrapped around his waist, sat in the armless rocker. Maggie, in her long white nightgown, sat on the floor between his knees.

Shanaco had told Maggie that from that first night he had come to her cottage with Double Jimmy and had seen her hairbrush lying on the bureau, he had yearned to brush her hair.

“Oh, please do,” she had said, and kissed him.

So now she sat hugging her knees while Shanaco carefully drew the gold-handled brush through her long, luxurious locks again and again.

“You have,” he said in a low, soft voice, “the most beautiful hair I have ever seen.”

Maggie smiled, pleased. “I’ll snip a lock for you to take with you when you go.” The brush abruptly paused. Maggie waited for him to speak. He said nothing. She drew a slow breath and said, “You’re just about fully recovered, aren’t you?”

“Yes, thanks to you.”

Maggie turned halfway about, laid her head back against his knee and looked up at him. “Shanaco, you must go. And soon. If you stay here they will find you and punish you even more than they already have.”

For a long
moment he said nothing. At last he shook his head. “I can’t go.”

“You can’t…? What are you talking about? You have to go!”

Shanaco laid the hairbrush aside. He reached down and cupped Maggie’s cheeks. “I cannot leave you, sweetheart.”

She clasped his wrists. “But you must. You have to. You can’t stay here.”

Shanaco moved his hands from her face, leaned down and lifted her up onto his lap. He wrapped his arms loosely around her hips.

Looking into her eyes, he said, “No. I’ve made up my mind. I’m not leaving. I’ll turn myself in and—”

“No, you will not! I won’t let you,” she interrupted, her eyes snapping. “Don’t talk like that. You have to leave! You know you do. No one would believe you over the colonel’s daughter. You haven’t a chance if you stay here. Please, please, Shanaco, you simply
must
leave.”

“How can I? I love you, Maggie,” he said. “I’ll stay here and take my chances. I cannot leave you. I won’t.”

“You don’t have to leave me. I’ll go with you.” She was quick to come up with a solution. “I love you, darling. Take me with you. We can leave right away.”

“No, Maggie. That wouldn’t be fair to you. You’re happy here teaching the children and—”

“That was before you, before us,” she said. “I won’t be happy without you. I’ll be miserable. I love you, Shanaco. I’m wildly in love with you. Take me with you.”

“Maggie, Maggie,” he said, tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear, “I can list a hundred reasons why you shouldn’t come with me. The main one being that I am not accepted in the white world and never will be. If you come with me, you won’t be accepted, either.”

“I
don’t give a fig! It makes no difference.”

“Yes, it does. You’ve told me about your aristocratic family and how much you love them. Do you really suppose they would approve of their beautiful young daughter marrying a half-breed?”

“I can’t answer that,” she told him truthfully. “From the time I was a child I was raised and taught to question everything.” She paused, then said, “I believe that once my mother and father meet you and see how much I love you, they will love you, too. Let me worry about my family.”

Shanaco exhaled. “Sweetheart, you will have no friends. You’ll be lonely.”

“I will have you. I won’t be lonely. I truly love you, Shanaco. If you love me, then take me with you.”

“You sure you wouldn’t live to regret it?”

“Never!” she said, with such conviction Shanaco finally began to smile. Her eyes flashing, she asked, “Where will you go? I’ll go anywhere with you!”

Shanaco laughed with delight and tightened his arms around her. “I have a little place up in the high country of northern New Mexico. It’s beautiful but very remote. I was living there before I came to the fort.” Maggie looked surprised. He said, “It’s mine legally, Maggie. I bought some unclaimed federal land and built a house and corral on it. I plan on stocking the ranch next summer. The house isn’t much. I built it by myself and—”

“I’ll love
any house you built,” she said, hugging him.

“You can fix it up any way you like,” he told her. “When we stop in Santa Fe to get married, we’ll get a wagon and pick up some things before we head on up to the ranch.”

“I can’t wait,” she said, her face aglow. Then immediately she sobered and asked, worried, “Does the command know about the ranch?”

“No.” Shanaco looked thoughtful for a minute. “I mentioned it to Double Jimmy in passing, told him approximately where the ranch is located. But no one else. I doubt he even remembers it.”

“Even if he does, Double Jimmy would never betray us.”

“Then it’s settled?”

“It is,” she said happily. “When shall we leave?”

“Can we be ready to go in forty-eight hours?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“Good, but remember, you can’t say goodbye to anyone.”

She nodded. “Only to Old Coyote. He knows you’re here with me. He’s kept quiet, he can be trusted.”

“One more thing,” Shanaco said with a smile, “much as I enjoy being naked with you, I’m going to need something to wear, so I’ll have to—”

“That
presents no real problem,” she said decisively. “I’ll simply send Old Coyote out to your cabin for some of your clothes. Whatever you need.”

Shanaco laughed and shook his head. “Sweetheart, Old Coyote can’t even remember where he lives half the time, so how—”

Interrupting, she said, “I believe there’s a very good reason he’s so forgetful. Bless his old heart, he was once, not so long ago, a respected and mighty war chief. An entire tribe depended on him, looked up to him, came to him for advice. Now he lives here on a reservation and has nothing to do. No one needs him. No one pays much attention to him.”

“That’s true,” Shanaco admitted.

“If we give him something to do, something he knows is really important, he will not let us down. He will not forget. I’d stake my life on it.”

Admonished, Shanaco said, “No wonder I love you so much, Maggie Bankhead. Not only are you the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, you’re also the wisest and the kindest.”

“So we enlist Old Coyote’s help. I will send him to your cottage for some clothes tomorrow night.”

“Indeed. And while he’s at it, there is a great deal of greenback money hidden in the cabin.” Shanaco lowered his voice conspiratorially. “It’s in a leather pouch hidden behind a loose stone at the south base of the fireplace. We’ll need cash for our journey.”