Deborah Camp (13 page)

She tried not to stare at him, but the sight of his smooth, muscled chest drew her gaze like a honeybee to a blossom. She advanced on hands and knees.

“You wanted something?” he asked sharply, running a hand through his hair. “You’re old
enough to know better than to walk in on a man in bed.”

“I didn’t walk, I crawled, and that’s not what I call a bed.” She eyed the thin pallet that was barely wide enough for his body. Elise hadn’t expected the tepee to be so small. She sat down with difficulty and arranged her skirts in a fan around her. When the hem trailed over his hand where it lay i on the pallet, he pushed the fabric back roughly and glared at her.

“What are you doing?” His tone bristled with irritation.

Elise dismissed his rude welcome and twisted around to examine the drawings on the skin walls of animals and men with bows and arrows.

“I said I was sleeping,” he repeated.

“Yes, I heard you the first time,” she said, sighing. “But you aren’t anymore.” She delivered a bright smile and touched her fingertips to an illustration of a buffalo. “Are you the artist?”

“Yes.”

“Is this what you do in here? Paint on the walls?”

“It’s decoration. You hang paintings on the walls; I do my own.”

“So what is this? A buffalo hunt?” she asked, examining the figures of red, black, brown and white.

“Yes. And this is the white man’s army raiding our camp.” He brushed his fingertips across a painting on the other side of him. “This is my uncle.” He touched a fallen figure with a spear sticking out of his chest. “He was seventeen when they killed him.”

“Were you there when he died?”

“Yes. I saw it.” His golden eyes focused on her.
“I painted this to honor him—to remember him.”

“Blade, do you hate white people?”

One corner of his mouth quirked. “Of course not. I don’t often understand them, but I don’t hate them. You think I would marry two white women if I hated the white race?”

“I don’t imagine anyone would blame you if you did hold a grudge against us.”

“War is not good for anyone.”

She glanced around, striving to lighten the atmosphere. “This tepee is quite something, but it’s barely big enough for you to stretch out. I thought tepees were home to whole families.”

“As the family grows, the tepees are enlarged. This is the type a scout takes when he’s on a hunt.” He crossed his legs under the blanket and scratched at the patch of hair in the center of his chest. “You awakened me for a lesson in skin lodges? This couldn’t wait until morning?”

“I want to talk to you about Adam.”

He shifted onto his other side, presenting his back to her. His skin tone was even, and she realized that he must work in the sun shirtless.

“That, too, can wait until morning,” he drawled.

“No, because you’ll slip away like a puff of smoke in the morning and not give me the opportunity to speak to you.” She curved a hand over his shoulder. The simple touch of her skin upon his was powerful—so powerful that she snatched her hand back as a quivering made itself known throughout her limbs. She buried her hands in her skirt.

He looked over his shoulder at her, his eyes half closed, his lashes casting long shadows on his cheeks. “Do you look upon me as a block of wood?” he growled at her. “You shouldn’t be here.
Go back into the house, where you belong.”

A block of wood? Was he saying that … Did he find her attractive? Even irresistible? She bowed her head to hide a smile.

Elise cleared her throat. “How did Adam do today? Did he learn fast? Do you think he’s big enough to push that plow? He’s only a child.”

“He doesn’t push the plow; the mules pull it,” Blade said, sounding sleepy and bored. “A little work won’t hurt him.”

“But isn’t the judge expecting him to do a man’s job?”

Blade flopped over onto his other side, his face revealed to her. Cradling his head on his folded arm, he stared relentlessly at her.

“Wh-what are you looking at?” she asked, running her fingers over her curling hair.

“A deaf woman.” He settled his head more comfortably. Tension quivered in the air like the threat of thunder. His eyes glittered in the candle’s glow.

Elise wanted to touch his shoulder again, but she didn’t. She squeezed her hands together in her lap and tried to think of something else to ask him—something safe. Then she looked at him again and her thoughts scattered like autumn leaves.

His underarms were nearly hairless. Her gaze drifted to his wide torso and the strands of inky hair curling around his dark brown nipples and the springy strands sprouting in the center of his chest where the bulging muscles formed a valley. A visceral response curled in her stomach and rifled an edginess through her.

“I’m not going to get rid of you, am I?”

Elise jerked her gaze away from the drawings on his chest and arms to the ones on the tepee walls. She fluffed her skirt with shaking hands. Her heart
boomed in her ears and she felt hot, feverish. “I only wanted to talk. Where’s the harm in that?” She traced the petals of a flower printed in the fabric of her skirt. “Why did you adopt Penny? You didn’t have to take her. You could have placed her back on the train and let someone else adopt her. Why did you insist on going through with it?”

His fingers chased a lock of midnight hair off his forehead. He crossed his arms. She sensed his careful study of her, but continued tracing the flowers on her skirt. She found direct eye contact with him too much to bear, like staring at the sun.

“It had been arranged.”

“Yes, but that’s no reason,” she said, her forefinger dancing idly around a rosebud.

“I promised Julia,” he said, his voice sharp with impatience. “We paid for the child. I thought Julia would get well, but she didn’t. I didn’t want to break my promise to her.”

“Blade, are you telling me everything about Judge Mott? You’re not afraid of him, are you?”

His silence alarmed her more than his growling and shouting. Elise looked up to confront the fury in his almond-colored eyes. She held her breath, realizing too late that she’d bruised his pride.

“I am afraid of no man,” he said, each word carrying honor. “I choose to live in peace.”

“At what price?” She marveled at her courage to pursue the subject, given his bristling demeanor.

“I will make no war with Lloyd Mott over a boy who thinks he’s too good to till the soil.”

Biting back angry words, she elected to keep a civil tongue. “I suppose you think I’m overstepping my bounds. I imagine you aren’t used to women forcing issues or arguing with men.” She tried to select just the right words as she meticulously
outlined a leaf on her skirt. “I wasn’t raised to walk ten paces behind men or to allow them to do my thinking for me.”

His brown hand covered hers and her heart stuttered. She glanced up through her lashes. His eyes gleamed. Such strange eyes, she thought. Light brown, almost sand colored, with golden streaks that radiated from the darker brown centers. Feral eyes, such as those belonging to a wild animal.

“You only think you know me and where I come from,” he said, his voice a low purr that lifted the fine hairs on her nape. “Apache life revolves around its females.”

With his hand enveloping hers, it was difficult for her to think. When his thumb swept across her inner wrist where a pulse danced, all thoughts ceased. She looked at him and could not look away. His gaze held hers, commanded hers. His lips moved and she missed his first few words. Her heartbeats drummed incessantly.

“… and the bridegroom lives with his wife’s people,” he said, his voice finally penetrating. “We trace our history through our females. They are valued and never expected to walk behind a man or be his slave.”

“Then why did you want me to be quiet around Judge Mott? Why did you get so angry when I spoke my mind in front of him?”

“Because the judge is not Apache. He isn’t interested in a woman’s opinion.” Blade removed his hand from hers and sat back.

Elise swung her legs beneath her again and started to crawl out, but another thought seized her. “Did Julia ever stay in here with you?”

He ran a hand down his face. “No. The tepee
wasn’t here when she was alive. I set it up after she died.”

“So am I your first female visitor in here?”

“Yes.” Golden light undulated across his shoulders and sparkled in his eyes. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been with a woman. A
long
time.”

Her breath caught in her throat and her good sense told her to change the subject—quick! “What does an Apache man do once he selects a woman to wed?”

His lazy grin chided her. “If the woman and her family are in agreement, then the man erects a home in his wife’s family’s cluster.”

“So did this land belong to Julia?”

“No. Julia’s family lives in California. This land belonged to my mother and was given to me.”

Elise sat back on her knees. “Your mother gave you this place?”

“Yes. After my father died, my mother took me back to her family in St. Joseph. Her people owned this land also, and it was given to me when I reached eighteen years.”

“Did your mother move here with you?”

He shook his head and his hair fell across his forehead. “She remained in St. Joseph and died there when I was twenty-three.”

“She was white?”

“Yes, and her family never completely forgave her for marrying an Apache and living with his people.” Blade’s hooded gaze moved over her. “People will think you’re dirty now, living out here with me.”

She frowned, holding his gaze, mesmerized by it. “I don’t care.”

“But you will. You were a woman of society, but
now you’re only a half-breed’s wife. People might shun you.”

“People already have, and it had nothing to do with you.”

A drop of perspiration rolled down his chest and was caught in the dark, curling hairs. Elise knew an irrational moment when she wanted to lean forward and collect that diamond drop with the tip of her tongue.

“My mother was the only survivor of a Cheyenne raiding party,” he said, crossing his arms against his chest and unknowingly depriving her of her wish. “When my father found her, she was wandering alone, her feet bloody from walking miles, her body burned by the sun. She had nearly lost her mind. My father saved her and fell in love with her.”

“How romantic,” Elise breathed, dazzled by the story and the storyteller.

“He loved her so much that he took her as his second wife.”

“Oh, so he’d been married before?”

Blade angled closer to her. “He was married
then
.”

His meaning escaped her for a few moments until she read something mischievous in his eyes and drew in a quick breath. “You mean … your father had two wives at once!”

“That’s right. It is done sometimes among the Apache. A man usually keeps with one woman, but my father’s first wife knew he wouldn’t be happy without my mother. She allowed him to take a second wife.”

“And your mother … she went along with this arrangement?”

“She told me that she would rather have died
than live without my father. Like you, she saw romance in odd places. Later, the romance wore away. She stayed because of me, but she longed for her own people. She always felt like the second wife—which, of course, she was. She had hoped he would treasure her more.”

Elise smiled sadly. “She fell out of love?”

He leaned closer still until Elise thought they might bump noses.

“Love had very little to do with it. My father lusted for my mother and was crazy to have her. But the match was not a good one—once they were alone, skin to skin.”

Elise frowned. “I don’t think I understand. Are you saying that your father was interested only in the chase?”

“I’m saying that some people aren’t meant to mix. My father was … rough, brusque, and my mother was raised around gentlemen. My father took what he wanted when he wanted it. My mother resented that. She wanted to be petted and courted, even after marriage.” He sighed and dropped his voice to a whisper. “I believe that the best relationships are between people with the same upbringing, the same religion, the same heritage.”

“Now you sound like all those narrow-minded people who call you names.”

“Maybe they’re right. Look at me. I don’t belong anywhere.”

She looked. She saw a man of stunning vitality. She saw rippling muscle and sinew. She saw bronze, smooth skin. She saw silky blue-black hair. She saw a generous mouth that sorely tempted her.

Elise shook herself out of her daze. “You belong here. This is your land, your home.”

His eyes grew darker. “Ah, but do
you?
”

Elise’s pulse boomed in her ears. His face was close to hers, his breath mingling with hers. Her eyelids grew heavy. She swayed toward him.

He lifted a hand to her face and rubbed her lower lip with his thumb, back and forth, moving her lip across her teeth as he watched with smoky eyes. Elise’s breath came in short gasps and her dress seemed to fit too tightly across her breasts and ribs.

“You’d better go,” he said softly, his hand trailing over her throat, his fingertips slipping down the slope of her left breast. “Go while I am in the mood to let you leave. In another minute I might forget that I am a gentleman. Like my father, I might take what I want and your feelings be damned.”

She looked at him, saw that he meant every word and refused to listen to the voice in the back of her mind urging her to stay and allow him every indiscretion.

Outside again in the night air, she stood and dashed to the safety of the porch. She stared at the tepee, trying to understand the moods of the man within it and the feelings he stirred in her. He had spoken of lust, and Elise was certain she’d just experienced it. Lust. Wasn’t that a sin?

She went inside the log cabin and paced like a caged animal. Without realizing it at first, she found herself standing on the threshold of the other bedroom—Julia’s room, as Blade had called it. The door was open—had she opened it?—and the interior was dark and full of mystery, like Blade’s eyes a minute ago.

Elise crossed the threshold and smelled mint and some other odor—clove, perhaps? Drawn to a photograph
on top of the bureau, she picked it up and went to the window to examine it by moonlight. So this was Julia, she thought, surprised by the woman’s appearance.