Indigo Blue (39 page)

In a high-pitched voice, she cried, “They’ve only got me and Chase. Maybe they only did it twice.”

“That’s nonsense,” he said firmly.

She shoved at his hand. “You can’t compare me to Ma. She isn’t a squaw, and she isn’t married to a—” She broke off and stared down at him, the words dying in her throat. The unfinished sentence hung between them, stark and resounding.

Jake winced as if she had struck him, and a glitter crept into his eyes. He pulled his arm from under the spread and sat up. “She isn’t married to a white man? Is that it?”

The hard, bitter edge to his voice frightened her. She cast a wild glance around the room, not quite sure why she had said such a thing. It was as if a black ugliness had boiled up from a hidden place inside her. She longed to call the words back so she wouldn’t see that awful look in his eyes. “I—that’s not what I meant.”

“Isn’t it?” His face drew into harsh, dark lines that made him look like a stranger. “I think it’s exactly what you meant.” With a curse, he forked a hand through his hair and said, “You know, Indigo, I’m sick to death of being compared to Brandon.”

“I—I don’t compare you to—”

“Like hell you don’t.” He pushed off the bed and stood up, turning to glare down at her. “There aren’t two people in this marriage, but three. You know what the saddest part is? I don’t know if you realize it. You’re packing around so much garbage inside your head because of what that bastard did to you that you don’t know which way’s up.”

She reared back, her eyes as large as saucers. Jake realized he was yelling and took a deep breath, trying to cap the unreasoning anger that was trying to erupt from within him. The weeks of frustration had taken a toll. He was overreacting. In the back of his mind, he knew it. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

He paced across the room, trying to calm down, then turned to fix smoldering dark eyes on hers. “What do you want from me?” he asked softly.

The question hung between them, an unanswerable wedge.

“N-nothing,” she finally managed.

With a low laugh, he said, “Sweetheart, don’t tell me nothing.” He walked back toward her. “What more can I do to prove myself to you? Name it, and it’s yours. Anything.”

As he swung his arm to indicate her options were limitless, she flinched away, as if to dodge a blow. For Jake, that was the last draw. “Dammit, Indigo, don’t cower from me.”

“I—I’m sorry!”

“You’re sorry? And you think that fixes it? Do you have any idea how it feels to have you duck like you think I might strike you?”

He felt the anger taking hold of him again. He tried to shake it off. This wasn’t the time or place for the words that were roiling within him. But reason eluded him.

She opened her mouth as if to speak, then snapped it closed.

He moved closer, so furious he wanted to shake her. “Do you think I might hit you when I’m angry? Is that it? Another little memento left behind by good old Brandon?” He pressed his face close to hers. “Look at me, dammit. Take a long, hard look! I’m not Brandon Marshall.”

Indigo looked into his eyes and saw the pain there. Pain that she had inflicted. Instead of frightening her, his sudden flare of temper was such a startling change from his usual patience and gentleness that she felt a wave of guilt. Was it any wonder he was furious? “Oh, Jake, I—I know you’re not.”

“Really?” He gave a harsh laugh. “You could fool me. I’ve bent over backward trying to prove to you that I’m nothing like him.” He jerked up the end of the mattress and swept the rock out onto the floor. “Name me another man who sleeps on boulders, goddammit, and I’ll put in with you. Have I complained? Even once? Hell, no. And that’s just for starters.”

Indigo flicked a horrified gaze to the rock teetering on the rug, then looked back at him.

“What do you want from me?” he asked again. “Being good to you hasn’t helped.” When she said nothing, he snapped his fingers. “Maybe I could marry you and go three weeks without touching you.” He moaned and threw up his hands in mock defeat. “But I’ve already done that, haven’t I?”

An electrical silence fell between them. Indigo thought of all the nights when he had held her so tenderly in his arms, and tears filled her eyes. Indeed, what did she want from him? The answer was nothing; he had already given everything any man could possibly give, and then some. She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to breathe around the ache in her chest. The smell of vanilla filled her nostrils.

“Maybe I could stop by the general store every evening and buy you peppermint. Better yet, maybe I could go without my dinner and take you walking every night so you can be in your woods? Now there’s an idea. A little hunger after working my ass off all day wouldn’t hurt me, not if it’d make you happy. Or maybe I could promise never to make you leave Wolf’s Landing.” He laughed under his breath. “But I’ve already done all that.”

Seeing her behavior through his eyes made Indigo feel so ashamed she wanted to die. “Oh, Jake, please, that’s enough.”

“I haven’t even started,” he came back. He began to pace the room again. In the dimness, she could see that he was shaking. At the bureau, he turned. “You know, I don’t blame you. I’ve committed the unforgivable crime.”

When he left that comment hanging, she couldn’t resist asking, “Wh-what was that?”

His eyes glittered across the room at her. “I was born white.” He lifted his hands and glanced down at himself. “Guilty as charged. I’m a no-good white bastard, always have been, always will be. There’s no changing it. And you know what that means. You don’t dare trust me. The minute you do, I might turn on you. Just like Brandon did.”

Indigo strained to speak, but there were no words. She pressed a hand over her eyes and finally managed, “Oh, Jake, it isn’t like that. It isn’t like that at all!”

“It’s exactly like that. I didn’t stand a chance in hell from day one. You never gave me one.” His voice throbbed. “Do you know how it felt that day by Lobo’s grave when you thought the surprise I had waiting for you here was a beating? Have you any idea how it hurt, knowing you thought I was capable of that? Not because of anything I did, but because I’m white?”

The raw pain in his voice lingered in the air long after he stopped speaking.

“Do you think I can’t bleed, Indigo? Well, let me tell you something. It hurts me just as badly as it hurts you to be judged and condemned because of my skin.” His voice raked over her. “And while we’re on the subject of race, there’s another little truth you need to face. You aren’t proud of your Indian blood. A near miss, that’s what you are, damned near white, but not quite. A squaw who’ll never measure up.”

The words cut into her like a lash. Even as she shook her head and cried, “No,” she recognized the truth in them.

“Take a long hard look inside yourself, sweetheart. A journey within, isn’t that what you called it? You make yours with your eyes closed. Maybe I’m the no-good bastard you think I am, but at least I see my ugly side. You’ve dressed yours all up with brittle pride, thumbing your nose at the world, pitting yourself against men, hiding behind squaw clothes so you’ll never again make the mistake of forgetting what you are. Brandon showed you what could happen if you stepped out of your place.”

Indigo clamped her hands over her ears. True or not, she didn’t want to hear this, couldn’t bear it. “Stop it!”

“No, by God, I won’t stop it. If I have to rub your nose in the truth to make this marriage work, I’ll do it every damned hour of every day until you open your eyes and face it.”

She shook her head.

“You’re in a hell of a spot, aren’t you? You can’t decide who you hate worse, me or yourself.”

“No, please, no . . .”

His voice vibrant with disgust, he said, “How can I possibly have any regard for you?
You?
A nothing squaw? You’ve been walking on thin ice from the second you married me. Correction! Not walking, groveling. So I won’t slap you into line. Your mother argues with your father. She may obey him in the end, but she’s not afraid to stand up for herself. But do you dare? Hell, no, you’re married to a white man.”

Indigo clutched at the bedspread and hugged it around herself, feeling as if it was all that held her together. The only sounds that broke the silence were her broken sobs and Jake’s uneven breathing. She flinched when he spoke again.

“Where’s your knife, Indigo? Since the day you married me, you stopped wearing it. Your parents say you used to practice with it every day.”

She sucked in a whine of air. “I—I didn’t think you’d like for m-me to.”

He gave a shaky laugh. “True enough. Your being that handy with a knife makes you all the more Indian, doesn’t it? And talking to animals? What white woman can do that?” He motioned toward the window. “And we can’t forget Lobo. The truth is that you leave the window open for him because you believe his spirit is out there, that it’ll always be, and you want him to know you haven’t closed your heart to him. When I asked, you alluded to that, but you couldn’t come right out and say it, could you? It’s an Indian belief. It makes you something less. Isn’t that right?”

His eyes demanded an answer. When she said nothing, he went on. “You were afraid to be open about any of those things, for fear I’d wake up and see you for what you really are. A squaw. Three-quarters white, but still a nothing.”

The accusation stripped her. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself more clearly in that moment than she ever had. “I’m
not
a nothing! How dare you say that to me?”

“You aren’t all white. In your books, that makes you a nothing.”

She stared up at him, unable to accept what he was saying, even though she knew it was partly true. “No! I’m proud to be Comanche.”

“Words,” he sneered. “They sound good. And you tried to live them. It was your insurance, wasn’t it? If you wore those leathers like a flag of glory and that god-awful hat, what white man would look at you, let alone want to marry you? God forbid that should happen. Brandon and his friends showed you how a white man would treat you, didn’t they?”

She passed a hand over her eyes.

“Then I came along.” He stood with his fists clenched at his sides, the bunched muscle in his arms sharply delineated beneath the bronze overlay of flesh. “And I wanted you, leathers and all. A white man who didn’t run the other direction. A white man your father liked, which made me even worse. I spelled trouble from the second you laid eyes on me. No matter how nicely I treated you, you knew I had an ugly side. I had to because I was white.”

His gaze routed through the dimness, as dark as obsidian. She moaned and tried to stifle the sound with her palm.

He waved a hand. “And that brings us to now, doesn’t it? A squaw about to be used by a white man. Who I am doesn’t count. All you can see is what I am.” He dragged in a breath. “I’m sorry as hell about that, but this is the skin I was born in.”

He walked slowly toward her.

“What am I supposed to do now, Indigo? Do we start with you getting on your knees to me? That’s where squaws belong, right? I don’t want to disappoint you.”

She fastened horrified eyes on him.

“Oh, yes, I heard what he said to you that day, every ugly, sick word. Come on.” He snapped his fingers and pointed at the floor. “Right here in front of me. Let’s see you crawl. Isn’t this what you’ve been waiting for? For me to see you for what you really are and treat you the way Brandon did?”

“That isn’t fair,” she whispered tremulously.

“Fair? Have you been fair to me?” he asked in a taut voice.

Indigo stared at him through a blur of tears. She hadn’t been fair to him, never once, right from the start. “Oh, Jake, forgive me. Please forgive me. I know I’ve behaved badly. And I—I’m sorry.”

His eyes, dark and shadowed with hurt, searched hers for an endlessly long moment. Then he whispered, “If you’re sorry, really sorry, get on your knees and say it. Prove to me and to yourself, right here and now, that you know I’m nothing like Brandon Marshall.”

Indigo knotted her hands into fists. “You’re nothing like him,” she sobbed. “I know you’re not.”

“Prove it. Face doing the one thing that terrifies you the most and put it behind you,” he urged, his voice ragged. “Trust me, and find out once and for all what I think a squaw is good for. I swear on my life you won’t regret it.”

Memories slid through Indigo’s mind, ugly and stark. She saw herself at thirteen, standing in a clearing with five men moving in on her, all determined to make her crawl for them.
Indian slut.
The name echoed inside her head. She looked at the floor where Jake had pointed, and it seemed as if it was a hundred miles away. He was nothing like Brandon Marshall and his friends. She knew that. But God help her, she couldn’t get on her knees to him.

Her shoulders jerking with sobs, she cried. “I—I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I—I’m afraid,” she admitted. “I shouldn’t be. I know I shouldn’t be. But I can’t help it. I’m afraid.”

His face chiseled with pain, he regarded her for a moment. Then he sighed. “Thank you for that much, at least. The truth, for once. I didn’t think I’d ever hear you say it. The two most difficult words in the English language, right?
I’m afraid.
”

With that, he turned for the door.

She pictured him walking out and never coming back. Her stomach clenched around a ball of pain. “Where are you going?”

He jerked the door back with such force it hit the wall. Pausing on the threshold, he said, “I’m getting the hell out of here before I do something I’ll regret.”

She tugged frantically on the bedspread, trying to gather the extra folds. “Jake, wait. Please, wait. Let me explain.”

“Explain? It’s crystal clear to me already.” He laughed harshly. “Do you know what the heartbreak is? I could have had you”—he snapped his fingers—“just like that. If I didn’t care about your feelings, I would have—probably a dozen times a day this last three weeks. The fact that I haven’t counts for nothing with you.”