Indigo Blue (10 page)

The advice had struck Jake as hysterically funny. But at that point, just about everything did. With a laugh, he replied, “I don’t think a gut feeling is what I’m experiencing, May Belle. Not anything quite that profound, if you get my meaning.”

“Yes, well . . .” She joined him in a chuckle. “You show me a man whose brains aren’t between his legs, and I’ll eat my black lace garters.”

With that bit of wisdom to take with him, Jake had picked his way back to the Wolf home,
picked
being the operative word. Aside from an occasional brandy, Jake seldom indulged, and May Belle’s private stock packed quite a wallop.

As he made his second attempt to scale the ladder to the loft, Jake grinned in the darkness, remembering May Belle’s throaty laughter. He might go back sometime. She was a nice old gal and about as wise as any he had ever met. Until tonight, he hadn’t thought whores could be sweet.

He reached for a rung and missed. His arm shot through the hole, he lost his balance, and all that kept him from falling was a rung in his armpit. Son of a bitch. Jake hung there for a moment, trying to find purchase with his boots. While he dangled, hooked by one arm and in danger of dislocating his shoulder, it occurred to him that only a drunken fool would try to climb to a loft when he couldn’t walk on level ground.

Goddam ladder, anyway. He found toeholds and crawled the remainder of the way. When he reached the loft, he threw up one leg, pulled himself forward, and then lay on the floor, facedown.

It wasn’t a bad floor, as floors went. He decided he might rest there a while. Nice and cool. He just wished it would hold still. He didn’t want to fall and land in the sitting room. It was the middle of the night. He’d wake everyone up. Not to mention the very real possibility that he might break his neck.

To be safe, Jake dug in with his toes and pushed farther from the ladder. Then he rested again, thinking of the follies of drink. The floor spun beneath him. He spread his hands upon it and assured himself it wasn’t moving. He couldn’t remember ever having been this drunk. Of course, he’d never failed to perform with a woman before, either. That called for a man to tie one on if anything did.

Maybe his manhood had atrophied. That was a sobering thought. His nose hurt. Jake peered down its length, wondering what in hell was wrong with it. Then he realized it was smashed against the floor. While he contemplated this new predicament, he heard a low snarly sound. For an instant, he thought it was air going up his smashed nostrils. Then the origin of the noise registered.
Shit.
That damned wolf.

Jake lay perfectly still on the revolving floor. The wolf continued to snarl. Finally, Jake dared to lift his head. Anemic moonlight shafted in through the window, spilling across Indigo’s bed. The wolf stood at the bed’s foot, swathed in shadow, approximately three feet from Jake’s throat. Jake sobered up, fast.

“It’s okay, boy,” he whispered. “I’m just taking a breather here for a second.”

Lobo was having none of that. Jake didn’t suppose the wolf had ever seen a man slithering around on the floor of his mistress’s bedroom. It had to be a strange sight. Jake blinked and tried to rise to his knees. The wolf’s snarl remained constant, no louder, no less threatening. So far so good.

Standing up proved to be a problem, but with such encouragement to get his ass out of there, Jake decided not to be fussy and crawled toward his side of the partition. If he woke Indigo, how would he explain the state he was in?

The wolf stopped snarling and followed on Jake’s heels to stand sentinel at the foot of the other bed, watching while Jake tried to mount the damned thing as he would a horse. Well, not exactly. He had never slid back off a horse. Determined, Jake threw a leg over the mattress and tried again. Of course, the ground never moved when he was climbing into a saddle, so it really wasn’t a fair comparison.

When he failed on the third try, Jake dropped his head to the mattress and peered through the shadows at Lobo. “If you tell anyone about this, I’ll shoot you. Understand? Bam, one dead wolf.”

Lobo snarled once and sat back on his haunches. He obviously didn’t intend to leave until Jake got into bed where he belonged. Jake had trouble focusing and sighted in along the bridge of his nose. “You did know what I was thinking earlier. Think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” Working one hand loose from between his chest and the bed, Jake leveled a finger. “Understand something, you dumb mongrel. What I think and what I do are two different things.”

Lobo licked his chops and snarled again. Jake made another attempt to climb on the bed and thumped back onto the floor. He groaned and laid his head on the mattress.

“I can’t do it,” he whispered.

Lobo growled.

Nausea rolled through Jake’s stomach. He groaned again. “Go ahead. Kill me. Right now, it’d be a mercy.”

Another low snarl was Lobo’s response to that.

Jake closed his eyes. “Look at it this way, old chap. If I can’t climb in my own bed, I can’t climb in hers.” A sick grin spread across his mouth. “And even if I could, I probably wouldn’t rise to the occasion.”

 

Typical of Oregon’s unpredictable weather, the following afternoon turned warm and sunny. The air smelled steamy and sweet, a preview of spring that appealed to Indigo’s senses and lifted her spirits after such a long, wet winter. After showing Jake Rand their second mine, which her father called Number Two,
Wahat
in Comanche, she led the way toward Shallows Creek, feeling more lighthearted and carefree than she had since her father’s accident. Mounted bareback on Molly, her mare, she picked her way through the tall grasses and tree-studded slopes, guided toward the old Geunther Place by an inborn sense of direction. Jake Rand followed on Buck, speaking to her infrequently.

After spending yesterday and most of today in his company, Indigo was coming to realize that Jake Rand wasn’t a talker. In fact, this morning he’d been almost surly. That suited her fine, for she wasn’t given to chatter, either. She enjoyed conversation, of course, but she loved silence as well, especially while in the woods. The sounds of the wild animals and birds played upon her ears like music. The whisper of the wind carried her imagination to faraway places and distant times.

Sometimes, while in the woods alone, she pretended she was full-blooded Comanche, a respected woman of the tribe, riding a powerful horse across the Texas plains her father had described to her. She always felt a little foolish when her daydreams ended and she was forced to face reality. Molly was a far cry from a sleek stallion, and the gullies and hillsides hemmed a person in. But what did dreaming hurt? She didn’t quite fit in this world, and it made her feel less lonely to pretend, if only for a while, that she lived with the People, that the color of her skin didn’t matter, that no one would ever look down on her.

Today, with Jake Rand riding behind her, she was a little too nervous to indulge in daydreams. Instead, she took pleasure in the glimpses of spring and watched Lobo romp through the woods. The fair weather had him behaving like a pup.

Turning slightly on Molly’s back, she called, “I thought we’d stop and eat at the old Geunther Place. Since it’s so sunny, we can even sit outdoors.”

Jake figured the ground would be wet, but he could survive that. After living through this morning, he figured he could survive damned near anything. “Sounds good to me. I’ve worked up an appetite. Is it far?”

“Just over that next hill. Tomorrow, you’d better try Ma’s flapjacks. She’s a wonderful cook, you know.”

Since his head no longer felt like a bucket someone was thumping with a spoon, Jake could smile at that. “For some reason, I wasn’t hungry this morning.”

“You’ll get over that. We put in long days here. You load up at breakfast to keep meat on your bones.”

She had plenty on hers—in all the places that counted. Riding along behind her, Jake found it difficult to keep his eyes off her well-rounded bottom. She sat a horse as if she and the animal were one entity, lending a grace to horseback riding he’d never seen. Her slender, well-toned legs hugged the mare’s belly, displaying a subtle strength.

Watching her, he found it easy to imagine her living in a primitive world, wild and free. It was also unnervingly easy to imagine himself making love to her, immersing himself in that wildness, tasting her sweetness. A grin settled on his mouth. There were some itches a man just couldn’t scratch with a jug of whiskey.

When Jake saw the Geunther Place, he thanked the Lord it was sunny. The place was a shack, and he didn’t relish the thought of eating in there. Indigo dismounted beneath a laurel tree, then looped Molly’s long reins so the horse could graze. Jake swung down from Buck with far more grace than he had managed the mattress last night, unsaddled him, and followed Indigo’s example by looping his reins.

The rushing sound of the creek sang in Jake’s ears. Fern fronds and blackberry shoots lined the bank. Jake spread his feet on the velvety grass, took a deep breath of the air and closed his eyes for a moment to savor the taste. It had been years since he’d been out like this, riding for the sheer joy of it, surrounded by mile upon mile of wilderness. He had forgotten how wonderful it felt.

“Is something wrong?”

He focused on Indigo, who knelt on the grass, unpacking the saddlebag that held their lunch. She hadn’t worn the hat today, and the sunlight ignited her loose hair to a blaze of copper-touched gold, nearly blinding him. He blinked and smiled. “The air smells so good, it makes me feel like yelling.”

The words popped out before he considered how silly they sounded. She didn’t appear to think him strange, though. Instead, she looked beyond him at the hillside they’d just descended, a distant expression in her beautiful eyes. After a moment she flashed him an impish grin. “Then perhaps you should yell, Mr. Rand.”

He laughed at that, then jumped a foot when she let out a shrill, yodeling cry. He’d never heard any sound quite like it. “What in God’s name was that?”

“A Comanche war cry. It’s really not difficult, once you get the feel of it. Go ahead, give it a try. It’s invigorating. There’s only me and Lobo to hear.”

With a chuckle, Jake narrowed an eye and sat beside her, pleased that she was beginning to relax. All morning, she had been reserved and wary. Not that he’d encouraged conversation.

“Maybe later. First, I want to eat.”

Loretta had packed them each two sandwiches, chunks of cheese, a piece of chocolate cake, dried apple slices, and a small vinegar jug filled with juice. After Indigo laid out the food on a towel, he dug in and savored each bite. The juice, he discovered, was blackberry and tasted finer than any expensive wine.

He was beginning to realize that the Wolfs’ lifestyle, simple though it seemed, was, in its way, far more pleasurable than his own. Jake figured he probably could buy a thousand mountain clearings but would never have time to enjoy them. Even if he made time, he doubted he’d find a picnic companion among Portland’s elite. Emily wouldn’t dream of sitting on damp ground to eat a sandwich.
Emily
. He couldn’t envision her face.

The realization made him feel a twinge of melancholy. Until coming here, he thought he had everything. Now he felt a vague dissatisfaction. There was more to life than paperwork. The years had cheated him, and the realization made him feel frustrated. How could a man with his wealth be made to feel poor by a girl who drank blackberry juice from a chipped vinegar jug?

When Lobo joined them, Indigo peeled the newspaper wrapping from his lunch, a generous portion of raw meat, which Jake assumed was venison. The wolf devoured it.

“With your father bedridden, shouldn’t you take care with the meat stores?” Jake asked. “How can you feed Lobo and a toothless cougar without running short?”

“There’s always more where this came from.” She wiped her fingertips on the towel and picked up her sandwich again. “I bring home most of the meat, so my folks don’t mind my being generous with Lobo and the cougar.”

His gaze dropped to her slender shoulders. “You shoot a rifle? I’d think the kick would set you on—” He broke off.

“Sometimes a rifle. I prefer to use a bow.”

Jake considered that. She killed animals, which meant she probably gutted and skinned them as well. How in hell did she tote a deer? Because she no longer seemed as tense as she had earlier and because he wanted to keep her talking, he asked.

“I quarter it, carry a section home and go back for the rest on Molly. I don’t go far. These hills are filled with game.”

What a puzzle she was, a girl who befriended a wolf, who fed the wild creatures, and then had the heart to slay them. Jake studied her small face, trying to understand her and failing. What bewildered him most of all was that she seemed so nervous around him. Maybe Jeremy was right and he glowered too much. Or maybe she sensed how she affected him.

“Does it bother you? Killing animals, I mean.”

Her mouth firmed and drew down at the corners. “My family must eat. The animals, they are
tao-yo-cha
, children, of Mother Earth. Sometimes, they must die so we may live.”

She truly did love the animals; he could see that in her expression. “It hurts you to kill them, doesn’t it?”

“It makes me feel sad, but only for a while. As my father says, ‘That’s the way of it.’ We can’t question nature’s ladder. If I were a deer, I would probably be eaten.” Her gaze dropped to his hand. “Your sandwich is made of venison.”

Jake chuckled again. “Point taken. It’s just that one doesn’t envision a young lady like yourself going hunting. That’s usually a man’s job.”

“I’m a little different from most young ladies,” she admitted, “as I’m sure you’ve noticed. I gave up trying to be something I’m not years ago. I walk my own way.”

Jake thought it would be a shame if she changed. Indigo Wolf was an original. One day soon, a young man would come along, take one look, and snatch her up. The thought made him stop chewing. If only he were ten years younger, he might have been in the running. There was something about her that appealed to him in a way other women didn’t, in a way Emily didn’t.