Embrace the Day (33 page)

"I—it's been more than three years…"

"But you know them, Mariah. You know where she might be."

She nodded. "There is a set of villages on the far bank of the Wabash…"

He inundated her with questions, making her sketch a crude map in the dust. Having exhausted her memory, he started to leave.

"What will you do, Luke?" Mariah asked.

"I'm going after her."

"You can't," she said.

"That's absurd, Mariah. What do you expect me to do when I've just learned there's every possibility that my sister is alive?"

"It's not that simple, Luke. She's a Shawnee now. You can't just ride into the village and take her away. It would be like stealing one of their women."

"Do you think that will stop me?"

"You'd be killed."

"Better to die trying than to live knowing Becky is out there somewhere."

Mariah regarded him solemnly. At last she understood why Luke disliked her, why he'd always begrudged her even the smallest kindness. She was a Shawnee, of the same blood as Black Bear, who had ripped his sister from the bosom of the Adair family.

"I no longer wonder why you hate me so," she said softly.

His head snapped up. "I don't hate you, Mariah, I—"

"You hate all Shawnee," she insisted. "I've always felt it, your disapproval, the way you keep your distance."

She swallowed hard. There wasn't any choice, not really. She couldn't let Luke plunge headlong after his sister, brav-ing the Shawnees' displeasure, the malevolence of Black Bear.

"I'm going with you," she told him quietly, trying not to think about her duties at Nellie's, and Gideon, and the
Ga
zette.

"No," Luke objected. "I can't let you do that, Mariah."

"But you will, Luke."

"I don't need the protection of a woman."

"Don't flatter yourself," she said harshly. "And don't overestimate your abilities. I'm a Shawnee, Luke. I speak their language; I know their ways."

"Mariah—"

She held up her hand. "Think of your family, Luke, your parents. If you go alone, they'll lose both you
and
Rebecca."

He stared at her for a long time. "Why are you doing this, Mariah?"

She began hanging the clothes on the line again. Why, indeed? What had he ever shown her but dislike, disapproval? Still, she would have died that winter if it hadn't been for him.

"I owe you my life. And Gideon's. I don't like feeling beholden."

"I never meant for you to feel that way."

The coldness in his eyes sent a chill through her. But she knew he was only trying to drive her away, rejecting her help.

"I'll be ready tomorrow at sunup, Luke," she said evenly. "If you're not here, with a horse for me, I'll follow you."

Anger darkened his face. She braced herself for a lengthy argument.

"Damn, but you're a hardheaded woman, Mariah Parker," he said.

Her head snapped up. She was sure he was insulting her.

But then Luke grinned, that wonderful all-encompassing smile that suddenly made her want to follow him anywhere.

Hance flicked the
reins smartly over the twin bobbing rumps of his new matched grays. He'd paid for his four-month absence by having to field Roarke's painful, probing questions and endure Genevieve's long, assessing stares. His parents had always made him feel uncomfortable. They were so damned good, so willing to understand. Stop me, he sometimes wanted to scream at them. The hell with your indulgence, your understanding.

But Hance wasn't going to worry about that right now. All the time he'd been gone, traveling down river to New Orleans, keeping company with smugglers and prostitutes, trying to lose himself on the orange-scented levees of the port, one face had haunted him. A face with wide-set brandy-colored eyes and an absurd little turned-up nose.

He had every reason to believe she'd send him away, or worse, refuse to see him at all. Hance shook his head. Ridiculous, chasing after this churchgoing and far too forward girl, when he could be sure of a welcome at any one of a half dozen houses, with delectable young ladies dancing attendance upon him. Still, no one but Ivy would bring him the contentment he craved.

He rolled his carriage to a stop in front of the Attwater house. It was on High Street, near the university. The brick facing, twined with ivy, gave it a staid, settled look of security.

As he stood on the front steps waiting for his knock to be answered, Hance wondered what he was doing here. Ivy Attwater couldn't possibly need him, not with her indulgent parents and her books and her self-satisfied opinions.

She answered the door herself. Hance tried not to stare, but the intense longing that suddenly pounded in his heart took him by surprise. He placed his foot on the threshold. She looked different—thinner, perhaps, and a little paler than she'd been last summer. But the smile that lighted her face was exactly what Hance had been hoping for.

Ivy laughed, a musical, rippling sound that delighted him. "Don't worry, Mr. Adair," she said, glancing pointedly at his booted foot. "I won't slam the door in your face."

He joined in her laughter, knowing now how very tense he'd been. "I wasn't sure. I guess you weren't too impressed with me after the Caddicks' ball."

"Oh, but I was," she insisted, drawing him into the elegant house. "I was extremely impressed."

"Not in the way I'd hoped." He swept off his hat. "I've come to apologize, Miss Attwater."

She tapped a finger on her chin. "What about the flowers? The bended knee?"

He shook his head slowly, grinning at her playful tone. "Not for you, Miss Attwater. I think I know you better than that." He reached into the pocket of his superfine frock coat and drew out a slim calf-bound volume.

Ivy took it, the smile in her eyes so bright that Hance basked. "Shakespeare's sonnets—the Eld edition! Oh, Hance, you don't know what this means to me. Where did you get it?"

He grinned, shaking his head. What would Ivy say if she knew he'd won it at the gaming table of a New Orleans club?

"No fair asking," he cautioned.

She brought the book to her face, inhaling the smell of new ink. Hance basked in the warmth of her smile as she flipped through the pages. He watched, delighted, yet feeling as nervous as a schoolboy.

A slip of paper fell from between the pages and wafted to the floor.

"What's this?" Ivy asked, picking it up.

Hance composed his face. "Read it."

She sent him a curious glance but unfolded the note. He heard her breath catch when she saw the words he'd penned once he'd realized that nothing in the world meant more to him than her.

Marry me, love.

Ivy stared at the words for a long time. Then, slowly, she raised her eyes to Hance.

"What does this mean?" she asked finally.

He grinned. His smile had drawn countless women to him, but now he wanted to summon only one. "Exactly that. I want to marry you, Miss Attwater."

"Why?"

Hance hadn't anticipated that question. He himself had spent weeks wondering the same thing. It had something to do with Ivy's wholesomeness, her straightforward ways. She was good, so damned good. Hance knew it wasn't logical, but somewhere deep down inside him he realized he was hoping, by the mere fact of association, that some of Ivy's goodness would rub off on him, reform his flawed character.

"I like you, Ivy," he said at last. Then, with utter sincerity, he added, "Before long I'm sure I will love you."

She laughed, but she wasn't mocking him. "And you decided all this on the basis of our short friendship."

He nodded. "Don't you love me, Ivy?"

She looked at him levelly with those wide, clear eyes. "I don't know. Why did you leave, Hance? Why did you stay away so long?"

He took her hand and kissed it. "I was ashamed of what I did at the Caddicks' ball… and after. I didn't think I was good enough for you, Ivy."

"And you do now?"

"No. But I've decided you'll have to accept me with all my flaws."

"Will I?"

He gave her hand a squeeze. "I insist, love."

She looked away. "Hance—"

"What can I do, Ivy? Shall I court you with flowers and pretty speeches, buy you presents—"

She shook her head quickly. "Not that, Hance. Never that." She glanced down again at the slip of paper, crushed now between their hands. "You shouldn't have put it to me like this, Hance. We need time. Time to be together, to get to know one anoth—"

He silenced her with a swift kiss, grasping her by the upper arms and drawing her against him. Hance knew as soon as their lips met that Ivy had never been kissed before.

He also knew, from the barely discernible sigh of longing that escaped her, that she was his.

The world loomed before Luke through the frame of his dun mare's ears. For a month he'd ridden across the stream-webbed wilderness of northwestern Kentucky, through hollows and hills and across great open patches of land, pausing only to eat, sleep, and rest the horses.

He glanced back at his companion and was rewarded by a cheery smile. Mariah's stamina astounded him. She matched his every waking moment, uncomplaining, working as hard as Luke when one of the horses became mired or when it was time to chase away the nighttime chill with a fire.

She knew the wilderness with impeccable woodcraft. She could name scores of plants and knew that one could chew a clean-tasting shrub like spice wood but cautioned Luke against the bitterness of buckeye and the bright poison oak berry. She hunted without blind searching, finding sweet berries growing hidden in the gorse. She could get a fire going in seconds by striking flint against steel and igniting a bit of charred cloth and dried sage.

Luke was hard pressed to best her in anything, until one day she begged him to show her a more efficient way to load his rifle. Her delight when she bagged a turkey filled his heart with a burgeoning warmth he didn't dare think about too much.

A hundred times a day he caught himself studying her, watching the clean lines of her profile as she shaded her eyes to study the terrain, the glint of sunlight in her inky hair, the way her slim thighs, encased in a pair of buckskins, hugged the flanks of her horse. At night he lay awake listening to her breathing and thinking about her in ways he'd never thought about any woman before.

Fording the rushing yellow waters of the Wabash had exhausted them both. Luke made a small, intimate fire and, too weary to cook, they supped on hardtack and apples. He stared across the fire at her face. The play of light and shadow carved hollows in her cheeks and lent her eyes a depth that made him wonder what she was thinking.

Tree toads piped loudly in the darkness, their shrill voices accentuating the silence of the two people who faced each other across the fire. Luke saw Mariah shift restlessly.

He tossed a stick into the fire with a mumbled curse. She said so little, yet he knew her mind was far from idle. It was ironic; for years he'd avoided chattering women, but now that he was in the company of one who gave him hours of silence, he found he longed to hear her speak. When she rose and slipped soundlessly into the wooded darkness, he cursed again.

At first, Luke thought nothing of her leaving; she never explained her desire for privacy, and Luke never questioned it.

But tension tingled within him as he selected another apple and ate it distractedly. He tried not to notice the deepening twilight, the spectacular glowing cover of the night sky.

Luke's worries took flight. They were in inhospitable country, where the rocks tumbled down to the river from sheer cliffs. Bears and wolves abounded, aggressive animals that didn't fear humans. This was Indian country, too, and—

Swearing, Luke came to his feet. His heart pounded as he unsheathed his knife and loaded his rifle. With sudden certainty, he knew that if anything happened to Mariah, the rest of his life would be a waking nightmare.

She'd gone toward the river. Luke hacked his way through brambles and wild raspberry bushes, emerging high on a bank of earth and stone. The moon, newly risen, cast a silver glow over the foamy tumble of water that cascaded over the rocks.

Looking down, Luke saw a dark shape at the water's edge. Panic shook him to his soul. Cursing, he tumbled toward the shape at breakneck speed, thinking she'd fallen down the cliff. The form on the bank was as still as death.

"
Mariah
!" Her name was ripped from his throat.

It wasn't Mariah but her clothes, spread in a damp heap over smooth stones.

"Fool woman," he said through gritted teeth. "Damned fool woman." The water was deep here, the current strong enough to sweep an entire oak tree downstream. Luke shuddered to think what the swirling water could do to a swimmer,  especially one so slight as Mariah.

He set his gun against a rock and threw down his hat. He knew that it was absurd, that there was no hope of finding Mariah in the churning, moon-silvered waters, but he couldn't just stand helplessly by and call her name. Stripping down to his breeches, he waded in and then plunged, surging strongly toward the middle of the river. He dove to the sand and rocks of the river bottom.

After exploring until his lungs ached, Luke resurfaced with a strong kick, gripped by helpless panic. "Oh, God, Mariah," he choked.

She was calling his name. At first her voice didn't register in his panic-fogged mind, but then he snapped his head around, scattering droplets of water over the surface. Relief surged through him when he saw her standing on the shore, looking almost childlike in her overlarge hunting shirt.

Luke emerged from the river with great slogging steps. Chasing on the heels of his overwhelming relief came a terrible rage, overtaking the tenderness he'd felt, obliterating reason.

He stopped in front of her, inches from her. His eyes raked her slender form from her slick, inky hair to her bare legs, slim and shapely beneath the formless hunting shirt.

His fingers bit into the soft flesh of her upper arms. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he snarled.

Mariah caught her lower lip with her teeth. "I was bathing, Luke. What's the matter?"

"What's the matter!" He emitted a sharp laugh. "You disappear for hours, you don't answer my calls—"