Dakota Dream (56 page)

"Not now, Jacob. Please not now. If I didn't believe you had done everything you could to save them, I wouldn't be standing here talking to you." She rose up on tiptoe and fit her mouth to his in a brief kiss. "Please, we've both been through so much. Let's have no more talk of death and pain today. We have so much to celebrate, so much of life to experience. Can't we just enjoy each other and rejoice in the fact that we've found each other again?"

In spite of his misgivings, Jacob smiled,
then
cupped her face in his hands. "My woman has the wisdom of three old chiefs."

"And she has
love
enough for her husband to be fifty of his wives. Hold me, Jacob. I've missed you so."

He crushed her to him, his heart bursting with love, and whispered in her ear, "Where do you sleep,
wi
witko
? Do you stay here with Barney and Hazel?"

She shook her head against his chest. "I live in the small house next door."

"Then let us go there now and celebrate our reunion without benefit of all these clothes."

Dominique laughed and pulled out of his arms. "I wish we could, husband dear, but we're not in your Hunkpapa camp now. As far as everyone around here is concerned, I'm a single lady and I carry the bastard of a sex-crazed savage. I'm afraid that until we're properly married, I'll have to sleep alone."

"Oh, really?" he said, his mind working to find a way around this policy.

"Really," she answered back, looking for a solution to the same problem.

"Then let us step outside now, announce our intentions to marry and be done with it."

Again she laughed. "Would that it
were
that simple, Jacob, but I'm afraid it's not. Before we can be married, we'll either have to wait for a preacher to come here or go to Bismarck and look one up. That will take a couple of days, at the very least."

"I see," he said, still looking for a solution. Then suddenly his sapphire-blue eyes lit up and a lusty grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. Raising his brow, he asked, "This house next door—you say you live there alone?"

"I do." She
nodded,
pretty sure they'd arrived at the same conclusion.

"This may be a good thing," he said advancing on her. Jacob slid his big hand around her neck. "And what would you do," he asked suggestively as he began to rub his thumb up and down, caressing the length of her throat, "if a half-naked savage should appear outside your window after you retire this evening?"

Dominique's breathing accelerated at his touch. Goose bumps sprang up all over her body, inside as well as out.

"I would probably open my window," she said in a breathless whisper, "to see what was going on."

"And if this savage should come inside your house and lie down on your bed?" he added, his mouth watering at the thought.

"I would go to him as a friend." Dominique closed her eyes and shivered as spurts of desire raced throughout her body. "I would try to help him in any way I could, perhaps give him some English lessons."

"English?"
Jacob
growled,
his voice thick with emotion. "Still you think to give me English lessons?"

"I don't recall you complaining the last time I tried to instruct you," she said with a lazy seduction in her voice.

The sudden image of Dominique standing nude above him sent shudders throughout Jacob's body, melting cords of muscle here, hardening others with an agonizing stiffness there.

Delighted by his reaction and by the glazed look in his eyes, Dominique went on. "A is for Apache—"

"B is for buffalo hides," he cut in impatiently.

"And T is for tired," she said, ending the game. "I'm exhausted. I think I'll turn in early tonight."

 
Chapter Twenty-three

Fort Abraham Lincoln, Dakota Territory, February 20, 1877

Jacob paced back and forth in front of the window. He stopped long enough to cock his head toward the bedroom door and listen for a moment, and then he resumed his incessant marching.

"Damn,
Stoltz
," Barney complained. "Will you sit down? You're making me dizzy."

"I cannot. Something is wrong. The child should have been here hours ago."

"Give the poor gal a chance, Stoltz. She hasn't been in labor but a few hours. I think it takes a little longer for the first one."

Jacob halted again, this time bending down and staring out across the compound at the riverbanks. "Where is the doctor?" he complained. "He should have been here by now."

"You got to take it easy and relax, Stoltz. I'm telling you, you're just this side of wearing me out. Doc will get here when he's darn good and ready to get here." But Barney didn't believe those last words himself, knew the doctor wouldn't be in any big hurry to come back from town just to deliver a baby, the child of a private's wife, no less.

Using up his rapidly waning creativity, Barney tried once again to change the subject. "So what have you heard from the government?
Anything new?"

Jacob stopped in midstride and drew his brows together.
"The government?
What do you mean?"

"About your job.
What's the latest?"

"I believe you know the latest," Jacob grumbled as he resumed pacing.

"No, I don't think so. Fill me in. Have you got the job for sure?"

Jacob heaved an exasperated sigh and explained yet again. “You know I have. You know that after the spring thaw, when Dominique is able to travel, we will move on to the Red Cloud Agency at Yellow Medicine Creek. There I will become the Indian agent and Dominique will continue teaching English to the Sioux and others who will sign the treaty of peace. Do you understand this yet, or do I have to write it down for you?"

"I get it." Barney laughed. "It just feels so good to hear you talk about it. You and Dominique might really make a difference for them
Indians,
what with your uncanny instincts about 'em and the way those little savages flock to her. Maybe your dreams of peace aren't so farfetched after all."

"I hope to persuade the government to return the Black Hills to the Sioux. That would go a long way toward ensuring peace between the people of—"

A loud moan followed by Hazel's excited voice cut into his thoughts and through his head. Jacob stomped across the room, shouting, "That's it. I cannot take this any longer."

Barney watched, wide-eyed, then jumped to his feet when he realized Jacob's intent. "Wait,
Stoltz
. You can't go in there."

"I go where I must," he insisted, reaching for the doorknob. "I will not stand out here any longer and do nothing while my woman dies." He kicked the door open and barreled into the bedroom.

"Oh, my Lord," Hazel yelped as Jacob reached the bed. "You can't be in here. This is
highly improper,
terribly indecent at the very least. I must insist that you take your leave."

"Leave him be, Hazel," Dominique said, her voice strained even though she languished between contractions.

Jacob sank to his knees and leaned across the bed. Mopping her damp brow with his hand, he asked, "Is the child too big? Are you all right?"

"Everything is going as it should, Jacob. Please don't worry about me."

"But I heard you cry out in pain."

"Well, damn it all, Jacob, this
hurts,
" she managed just as a new contraction loomed up from nowhere, first crushing her against the mattress, then lifting her as her back arched in agony.

Terrified, Jacob glanced at Hazel and shouted, "Do something, woman."

But before Hazel could say a word, Dominique turned on him, her voice hoarse and guttural. "Shut up and give me your hand, you nincompoop. I need you, Jacob. I need your strength."

Feeling utterly helpless, Jacob placed one hand on her brow and the other on her breast. Dominique laced her fingers around his wrist and began twisting and squeezing, pulling his flesh as she bore down in the final stages of labor.

"Push, honey," Hazel encouraged, no longer taking notice of the frantic soldier. "Come on. I can see the head.
One more time, Dominique.
Give it all you've got."

Jacob watched his woman, his wife according to both Sioux and white law, and squeezed back the tears that seemed to be a part of his life now.
Please don't die,
he said in a silent prayer just before he leaned in close to her ear and whispered, "I love you,
wi
witko.
I'll always love you."

Then Jacob looked down in time to see his son slip out of his mother and into his rightful place in the world.

"Oh, Dominique," Hazel cried, "
look
at him. It's a beautiful little redheaded boy."

Still struggling to get her breathing under control, Dominique inclined her head,
then
collapsed against the pillow. "Jacob, did you see him? We have a son."

But Jacob was overcome with emotion, too shaken to form even the simplest of words. For the last four months he'd done nothing but
worry
about Dominique and love her. Never once in that time had he allowed himself even to think about the child, imagine it as a person, or wish for a son to carry on his name. Now that the child was here, now that physical proof of his union and the love he shared with Dominique rested inches from his big hands, he couldn't move, couldn't talk. He leaned his elbows against the mattress and stared, a stone man, as Hazel finished cleaning the infant, then placed him across his mother's abdomen.

"Look, Jacob," Dominique whispered, aware of her husband's turmoil. "He takes after his father."

Jacob's gaze followed the path of hers to their son's writhing body and the fully erect symbol of his sex. The baby howled his displeasure at the rude interruption in his life,
then
shot a stream of urine into the air.

Startled out of his trance, sprayed by the child as well, Jacob leaned back, his chest swelling with pride, and said, "Dominique, speak to this little
nincompup
. Tell him he must have respect for the man who will be his father."

"The little
nincompup
?"
Hazel objected. "What kind of name is that to call a newborn baby?"

Dominique laughed and reclaimed her husband's hand.