Lily's Secrets [Elk Creek 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (27 page)

Lily took a deep breath and turned to Wyatt for just the moment it took her to meet his gaze. She put her glance back on the road in front of them before responding. “I’m not sure how to feel.” She twisted the handkerchief she held in her hands, allowing several more beats of quiet between them before she whispered, “I’m scared, Wyatt.”

“I am, too.”

That someone as strong and solid as Wyatt could admit that made her feel a little better. “I don’t know what I’ll do if he…if he doesn’t like me.”

“Doesn’t like you? Why on God’s green earth wouldn’t he?”

Lily shrugged, unwilling to share her deepest concerns and shortcomings. She had already let her husband and son down in so many fundamental ways. She didn’t want to compound her sins.

“If he’s anything like his father,” Wyatt said, “absence has only made his heart grow fonder and he’ll fall in love with you all over again once he sees you.”

Lily swallowed hard over the lump in her throat, tried to put on a brave face. She did not want to disappoint anyone else in her life, especially not her little boy.

Wyatt let go of the reins with one hand and put his arm around her, hugging her close and kissing her forehead before grabbing the reins with both hands again. “We’re all going to be all right. Trust me.”

Lily’s face heated with a rush of shame. She knew she should have trusted her husband with the complete truth about what had happened to her, but she told herself she couldn’t, that her omission was for his own good.

Dakota doubled back on Gambit before Lily could answer Wyatt. “We are almost there. The reservation is just over the next ridge.”

Lily’s heart sped at his words, pounding so hard she thought it would burst from her chest at any moment. She almost laughed at the imagery and thought how ironic it would be if she died before being reunited with her boy.

Would it be such a loss to him? Had he missed her as much as she had missed him? Would he mourn her as she had mistakenly mourned him all these months?

Lily shook herself from her brooding thoughts and focused on the landscape unfolding before them, wonder filling her.

At least fifty teepees of various sizes, colors, and designs dotted the surrounding grassland ahead. Among the buffalo-hide dwellings Lily noticed smoke rising up from the center of the encampment. It looked like they had arrived just in time for the midday meal.

As they neared, she could make out the distinctive sounds of children laughing. The sound filled her heart with so much nostalgia and hope, Lily thought she would come apart. Memories of her time with the Kiowas, how the tribe had eventually accepted and taken care of her and how they had doted on her son, swamped her.

The Kiowas, Dakota’s tribe, were a strong people, a proud people with a rich history and who had lived through many hardships, the least of which was losing their land and their home to the white man’s, her people’s, expansion into Indian Territory.

These were the people with whom her boy had grown up, the people who had been teaching him right from wrong, teaching him about life without his parents.

He was still so young with so much more to see and learn. Could he accept Lily and Wyatt in his life, as his new teachers and more? Would he want to?

Lily didn’t know what she would do if he rejected her.

She was so preoccupied with her morose thoughts she hadn’t realized that the horse and wagon had come to a stop.

Lily took a moment to glance about her and see the children of different ages and sizes surrounding her and Wyatt’s wagon, a soft murmur of curiosity rising up from their young ranks.

She set her gaze on every child around them, taking in the variety of copper-toned faces and dark-eyed looks, searching for the little blond nipper who didn’t look like the others.

Dakota got off of Gambit and walked back to the wagon. “I will take you to him.”

Lily nodded as Wyatt, already out of the wagon, reached up his hand to help her down.

Another moment of truth was almost upon her.

She didn’t even want to think about the inevitability of her final one with Wyatt.

Outside of Dakota, Wyatt had never been this close to an Indian he wasn’t trying to kill or who wasn’t trying to kill him.

He didn’t, however, feel threatened as Lily took his hand and stepped from the wagon. He didn’t know if it was Dakota’s presence or the ease with which Lily glanced around her that made him feel almost at home among Dakota’s people.

Wyatt supposed it didn’t hurt none that the people surrounding him were all youngins and looking at him and Lily with more inquisitiveness than hostility, like any other youngin might.

It struck him, too, that the kids were all well behaved, surprising him with their decidedly nonprimitiveness, if there was such a word. They were, in fact, some of the best-behaved children he had ever met, as well behaved as any of the white children he knew in Elk Creek.

Wyatt took a moment to admire the children and their clothing, the long buckskin dresses painted with yellow and green designs and beaded moccasins on the girls and the buckskin pants, breechcloths, and leather moccasins on the boys.

From just what he could see of the children, Wyatt decided that the Kiowas were not savages at all. These were a dignified people and, like his own, just trying to survive and make their way in the world.

One boy, a shirtless teenager standing several inches shorter than Dakota and Wyatt, but carrying himself much taller, stepped forward as if the representative for the group.

Wyatt noticed that his hair was cut short on the right-hand side and glanced around at some of the other boys to see the practice was common among the older males. He wondered if it had anything to do with a tribal ritual.

Dakota stepped to his side and whispered, “It is so that their hair does not tangle in their bowstrings. It is a tradition for the older boys.”

Wyatt nodded, thankful for Dakota’s perennial mind-reading abilities, or maybe he had just been staring that hard that his concern had been so evident to Dakota.

His heart ached again at the thought that he didn’t even know what his son looked like, whether his hair was short or long, blond like his or brown like his mother’s or…

The teen boy said something in his language.

Wyatt and Lily both turned to Dakota for translation.

“He asked if we are here for…for Light Hair.”

“Our son?” Wyatt asked.

Dakota nodded then said something to the teenager, who nodded in response and pointed to one of the larger teepees.

“Follow me,” Dakota said.

Wyatt took Lily’s hand as much to gather her strength as to give her his.

The children followed behind them, all the while whispering in their own tongue. A couple of the girls even touched Lily’s dress, smiling as the cotton material passed through their little fingers.

One girl in particular pointed to Lily’s crushable brown felt hat.

Wyatt stopped as Lily paused and smiled at the girl.

His wife had never been one to ignore a child, and this child was probably not much older than their son.

Wyatt wondered if the same comparisons that were going through his head at that moment were going through Lily’s head.

She had always loved children and she’d always been good with them, even when she had been but a child herself. Lily was a born teacher and nurturer and Wyatt knew how much it hurt her not to be teaching the way she had before her attack.

Lily crouched down beside the child. “Would you like to touch it?” She bent her head and the little girl stepped back before taking a tentative step forward and reaching out her hand.

Her breath left her parted lips in a little exclamation as her fingers caressed Lily’s hat. She said something in her language and pointed at Lily’s hat and then at her own dress.

“She said that your hat feels like her dress,” Dakota said.

Lily smiled and nodded before she stood beside Wyatt again. She raised her hand in a little wave at the girl.”See you soon, okay?”

The little girl nodded as if she understood.

Wyatt thought on some level she did then wondered how much translating Dakota would have to do between him, Lily, and their son.

Did his son speak English?

They arrived at the teepee and Wyatt had a moment to admire the colorful designs painted on the hide before Dakota announced his presence to whoever was inside.

A deep voice responded from within before Dakota pulled back the flap to enter. He turned to them at the last minute and said, “Follow me.”

Wyatt let Lily step inside before him, removing his hat and ducking slightly like Dakota to enter.

The inside of the teepee was cozy and a lot bigger than he thought it would be. He was able to stand up in the center without crouching at all, but didn’t remain standing for long.

“Grandfather.” Dakota nodded at the older man sitting against the farthest side of the teepee with his legs folded over each other.

“Grandson.” The older man nodded.

He had high, sculpted cheekbones like Dakota’s, his brown features stern and slightly lined. His hair was longer than Dakota’s, the gray-streaked black strands worn in two braids down each side of his head.

Rather than detracting from his masculine countenance, the braids only added to it.

“Grandfather, these are Little Wyatt’s parents.”

He nodded and pointed to a small pallet on the ground opposite him. “Please sit.”

Wyatt and Lily sat together and Dakota took a seat adjacent his grandfather.

Once they were all situated, the old man stared at Lily. “It has been a long time.”

Lily nodded. “I’ve missed you, Dyami.”

“And I you.” He turned his disapproving gaze to Dakota. “We were not told of your survival until a short time ago.”

Wyatt watched as Dakota’s face flooded with color.

“Our son is well?”

“We have been taking care of Little Wyatt as if he is our own.”

Wyatt tried not to take offense at the old man’s words, remembering what he had said to Dakota. It seemed that Lily and Wyatt were not the only ones Dakota had been dishonest with.

“We’re here to take him home,” Wyatt said.

“I know.” Dyami sighed as if he hadn’t been looking forward to this moment.

Wyatt reckoned the old man had a right to be in a state about their arrival as long as he didn’t give them any trouble about taking Little Wyatt away. “Where is he?”

“He is nearby.”

Dyami called out in his native tongue and it sounded like the name the teen boy had said to Dakota earlier.

A moment later the flap opened behind them.

Wyatt’s heart thudded so hard in his chest he could barely hear Lily’s gasp beside him as she turned. He watched as she stood and went to the opening, but didn’t turn himself. His earlier nerves had taken hold of him again.

What was he going to say to his son, a boy he didn’t know and who didn’t know him?

“Little Wyatt? Do you remember me?” Lily asked.

Wyatt couldn’t put it off any longer. He stood and turned just in time to see the little blond boy and Lily as they closed the space between each other.

“
Khaw khaw
?”

Lily took off her hat and hunkered down. “Yes. It’s me, Mommy.”

Little Wyatt paused, his blue eyes twinkling and widening before he grinned, and threw himself into his mother’s open arms.

Lily almost toppled over with the force of the little boy’s body, laughing as she hugged him tight to her bosom and came to her feet.

Wyatt swallowed hard over the lump in his throat as he watched them.

Lily needn’t have worried about Little Wyatt accepting her back into his life. It was him who needed to worry about being accepted. He was a complete stranger. Lily was not.

He had to stop himself from resenting that fact. He knew the last year had been no picnic for Lily. She had been mired in unnecessary grief while he had been mired in unnecessary ignorance.

Wyatt caught the tears streaming down Lily’s face as she spun the boy and kissed his face over again and again as if she couldn’t believe he was real.

“Kee-own-day-daw!”

Wyatt heard the alien words leave his son’s mouth and Lily’s response of “I know. I know! It is, isn’t it?” and he felt totally left out. “Does he speak any English at all?” he asked no one in particular and it shocked him when Little Wyatt turned to him and answered.

“Oh yes. I speak English.
Say-gee
Dakota,
Maw-Tame Kxee Daw.
He is a teacher.
Paw-ah-tday-gyah gaw thaw-koye tdoen-gyah aun ate khaumm-maw
.”

Wyatt shook his head and Lily laughed and kissed Little Wyatt’s face again.

“He is excited and mixing his English with his Kiowa,” Dyami explained. “He said his Uncle Dakota is a teacher. He teaches the children how to play ball and teaches them English.”

Wyatt nodded, relieved that he would not have to struggle in order to communicate with his son and awed that his son could speak two languages when he spoke only one. “What did he say to you before?” he asked Lily.

“He called me Mother and said that this is a great day and I agreed.” Lily squeezed Little Wyatt to her and pressed her cheek against his.

“You still speak the language,” Dyami said, a note of wonder in his voice as he came to his feet and went to Lily.

“Not well. I remember a little.”

Little or not, it was enough to understand their son. “Can I?”

“Oh, of course!” Lily hurriedly lowered Wyatt to the ground and crouched down in front of him again, holding him by the shoulders. “Remember what I told you about your father?”

Little Wyatt nodded and gave Wyatt a wary look from the corner of his eyes as if he knew what Lily was going to say next and he wasn’t sure he was going to like it.

Lily stood and took Little Wyatt by the hand. “This is your father, honey.”

Little Wyatt tilted back his head to glance up at Wyatt and Wyatt quickly hunkered down in front of the boy like his mother had.

“
Tdaw
?”