Comanche Woman (27 page)

Bay swallowed over the lump growing in her throat and managed to ask, “But you’ll come back for me, won’t you?”

You’re my wife. Of course I’ll come back for you.

But he only thought the words. What he said was, “There’s no way we can be together, Shadow. You can’t live in my world, and I can’t live in yours.”

“Can’t? Or
won’t
,” she accused.

“It’s the same thing.”

“No, it’s not. Why can’t you live in Texas? What’s stopping you?”

“Look at me, Bay. What do you see?”

“I see a man.”

“In braids and a breechclout and—”

“You can cut off your braids and wear cotton breeches.”

He looked at her as though she’d blasphemed. He ran a hand protectively over one thick black braid. A Comanche’s braids were his one vanity. She might as well have been Delilah telling Samson to cut his hair.

“You said you loved me. How can you simply leave me on my father’s doorstep and ride away?”

“Do you think this is going to be easy for me?”

“It’s obviously easier than staying with me,” she retorted. “You’re just afraid to try living—”

“Enough! I tried living among the White-eyes,” he hissed, “and do you know what I found?”

“What?”

“Hatred for the Comanche, fear of his cruelty, disdain for his intelligence, and pity for his simple gullibility. When I live with you in Texas, shall I ignore these insults to The People? Or shall I seek revenge for them?”

“Neither,” she retorted. “Help those who hate to understand.”

Long Quiet snorted in disbelief and said in Comanche, “
You do not tell a hungry wolf standing over a carcass that he should not have killed the calf
.” In English he continued, “The white man wants the Indian dead so he can take his land. I don’t know if I can stand by quietly and watch that happen.”

She frowned, sharing his concern, but asked, “What can you do to stop it?”

He bunched his hands into fists and held one out to her. “I can fight the white man as a Comanche.”

“And what will that solve? You’ll be dead, and the whites will still take the land.” She covered his outstretched fist with her hand. “You can’t stop the tides or hold back the horde. You can only live your own life in truth and honor. Can’t you do that in Texas as well as in
Comanchería?
I want to be with you. I love you. I’m your wife.”

“Not under the white man’s laws,” he countered. “Once I leave you at your father’s door, you’ll be free to find someone else . . .” He couldn’t add “to love” because the thought of her loving another man was too painful.

She threw herself into his arms and clung to him. “Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said? I love you and I want to be with you.” She looked into his gray eyes and saw confusion and uncertainty. “You’ll come back for me. I know it. And I’ll be waiting when you do.”

He pulled her arms from around his neck. “Don’t wait for me,” he said, furious with her for making him question beliefs he’d embraced for years. “I won’t be coming back.”

“If you tell me not to wait,” she warned, equally furious, “I won’t. I won’t pine away for you, Long Quiet. I’ve spent too many years of my life pining away for a man who didn’t come back for me when he promised he would. I won’t make the same mistake with you that I made with Jonas. I’ll carve out a life for myself that includes everything beautiful and good Texas has to offer, and I’ll forget about you.”

Long Quiet’s features hardened at her reference to Jonas Harper. “So be it! Forget about me. As I will forget you.” He retrieved his knife and kicked the dead snake away from her
parfleche
. He dumped out the remainder of the contents of the rawhide bag to make sure there were no more unpleasant surprises waiting to be discovered, then refilled it with her things. Bay stood beside him, holding the carefully folded leggings. When he was finished, she handed the leggings to him and he stuffed them inside the bag.

“Come to bed, Shadow. We have a longer journey tomorrow than I expected. You’ll need your rest.”

He reached out a hand to her, and when she took it, he led her to the pallet they would share. After she’d lain down, he lay beside her. Bay turned away from him, trying desperately to hide her grief. But one sob escaped, and then a second.

Long Quiet reached out a hand to comfort her, but Bay jerked away. “Don’t touch me!”

But he remembered the times he’d refused comfort in anger when comfort was what he wanted most. So he ignored her struggles and turned her into his embrace. He held her tight, his fingers brushing through her silky auburn hair as she cried out her pain.

His hands eased the tension at the base of her back, then curved around her buttocks to hold her close. He was only conscious that she felt good nestled snugly against him. The sudden rigid arousal of his body caught him by surprise.

Bay wasn’t sure when the need for comfort had become desire, but her arousal fully matched Long Quiet’s. She arched her pelvis into Long Quiet’s tumescence and heard the responsive groan deep in his throat.

“Love me tonight,” she said in a low voice raspy from crying. “Give me a memory to keep me through the long days and nights without you.”

Long Quiet kissed the corners of her mouth before his tongue traced the shape of her lips. He teased her, never fully satisfying her need, until Bay reached up and grasped his hair with her hands and brought his lips down to meet hers. They opened their mouths and tasted one another, searching for honeyed treasure. Long Quiet bit her lip and then soothed the hurt with the tip of his tongue. He sucked her lower lip into his mouth and nipped at it with his teeth. Then she did the same to him. They made love with their mouths while their hands roamed each other, touching greedily, with all the love they’d intended for a lifetime needing to be spent in a single night.

Their loving was intense, as moving as their first time together, as violent as their last. His hands sought the wet warmth of her and she flowered for him. And then he replaced his fingers with his mouth.

Bay bucked in surprise and pleasure. “What . . . I can’t . . .” She gasped with sheer pleasure as he tasted all of her with his tongue. When she crested on a wave of ecstasy, he joined their bodies and made two into one. He filled her full, thrusting deeply, surely, and when he felt her shudder with fulfillment, he spent his seed inside her with a cry.

He rolled onto his side and pulled her tightly into his embrace. “You will never forget me,” he panted. Spent, exhausted, he could not stay awake to hear her reply.

But Bay said nothing. She lay awake far into the night and watched her husband sleep. His face was not so harsh now, although his cheekbones stood out in sharp relief. She brushed aside a curl at his temple and traced his warm lips with her fingertip. She laid her head against his heart and let the steady beat soothe her to sleep. They had said their good-byes. She had nothing left to hope for now.

Part II

BAYLEIGH

Chapter 14

T
HE
R
EPUBLIC OF
T
EXAS
1843

L
ONG
Q
UIET WAS GONE
. H
E
’
D BROUGHT
B
AY SAFELY TO
her father’s doorstep, but no farther.

“You must go the rest of the way alone. The less your father knows of our relationship, the better. Do you understand, Shadow?”

“No,” Bay cried. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this!”

Long Quiet had clenched his jaw, biting back the retort Bay could see forming. He’d simply turned his pinto and ridden away.

Bay stood and stared at her father’s house. Before her rose a two-story structure surrounded by a double gallery porch. It was painted a dazzling white that was almost blinding in the midday sun. The windows gleamed, reflecting the light like huge cat eyes. Rip had built almost a replica of the house that had burned down the day she’d been captured by Tall Bear three years before.

Bay noted only slight differences. The windows must be a little smaller, because the shutters were more narrow, and the round columns that held up the second-floor porch were more elaborate. The front door was made of sturdy oak and looked heavier than she remembered. But the three live oaks that graciously draped the house with moss-covered limbs and gave Three Oaks its name stood as majestically proud as ever.

She walked up the three steps and across the porch to the front door. She took a deep breath before reaching out and turning the shiny brass doorknob. The door opened and Bay was overwhelmed by the smell of the beeswax that had been used to polish the shiny oak floor in the central hallway. She wondered where everyone was. Then she heard voices from the dining room. Of course—they must be having dinner.

As she turned into the first doorway on the right side of the hall, her moccasin sank into the plush Oriental carpet that covered the parlor floor. She walked farther into the room, touching things as she went. Her hand smoothed over the brocade settee. Her callused fingertips tested the cool marble mantel above the brick fireplace.

She followed her nose to the dining room door. She stayed just out of sight beyond the doorway so she could observe without being seen. Rip sat at the head of a cherrywood table, where he’d always sat, with Sloan to his right and Cricket at the far end of the table. The fourth chair, the seat that had always been hers, was empty. Bay yearned to be sitting there now, yearned to turn back the clock, to make things the way they’d been three years ago.

Bay looked for changes in her family and found them. Her father, a huge bear of a man, sat as arrogantly straight and tall as ever, but deeper wrinkles etched his brow and somber lines framed his eyes and mouth. Gray now threaded through his rich auburn hair, which curled down over his collar. But Rip’s eyes had lost none of their vitality.

In Sloan the changes were more subtle. She held her body more rigidly and her chin bore an even more determined thrust than it had three years ago. Her low, sensuous voice held a sharper edge than Bay remembered.

The changes in Cricket were most notable. She radiated happiness in her sparkling eyes and the burble of contained laughter in her voice. When she spoke, the contentiousness that had marked her character before her marriage to Jarrett Creed was missing.

They were eating clove-laced ham with honeyed sweet potatoes and buttered corn and peas. It was Cricket’s favorite meal. Rip and Sloan were discussing the cotton crop that had just been harvested and sent down the Brazos River to market in Galveston. Sloan remarked how it had been a poor year but better than the last, and suggested perhaps they ought to put in a few more acres of sugarcane or corn next year. It was all so familiar. And all so very, very strange.

Bay rested her head against the doorjamb, unaware that she’d made herself visible to those in the room.

Cricket saw Bay first and came up out of her chair so fast it shot over backward, landing with a clatter. “Oh, glory!”

Cricket’s precipitous action brought Sloan and Rip to their feet with equal speed. Rip grabbed for a gun as he rose, and Bay found herself facing a .44 Colt revolver.

Bay shrank from their intense stares and grasped the doorjamb with both hands to keep herself from running away. Her body trembled as she waited, watching her father’s face to see how she would be greeted. She wanted to throw herself in his arms and have him hold her, reassuring her that he loved her and she was welcome home.

But Bay had never touched Rip so freely, and it was wishful thinking to hope he would greet her in such a manner now.