Night Thunder's Bride: Blackfoot Warriors, Book 3 (10 page)

“No, I don’t see how it is possible at all.”

“Consider it well, Rebecca. Do you feel how your body responds to mine, how mine desires yours? And this is only the first of several nights we will have to spend this way together…some people never have this readiness in a marriage, and yet we do not even try and it is there. Perhaps we should think of it.”

“No, I…you could wear your breechcloth to bed.”

“And do you think that would help?”

“Aye,” she replied. “I do. Please, I’m sure of it.”

“Then I will do it and we will see.”

“Aye,” she said, “please.”

A few silent moments passed, an uncomfortable silence.

He broke it. “Do you want that bath?”

“Very much, yes,” she answered.

He chuckled. “So, too, do I. Let us go to the coulee, now when there is no danger of a war party catching us and where the others cannot watch us, as well.”

“Aye,” she said, and together they made their way to the valley.

It was a clear night, though the moon shone with little light to guide their way.

A nighthawk squawked in the distance and the locusts filled the night with their own peculiar humming. A chinook had blown in, bringing with it a warm breeze to whisper over her skin.

A thousand, no, a million stars glittered overhead with a brilliance unseen and unheard of in the east. Rebecca gazed upward, amazed to see how close the stars appeared to be. She held up her arms as though she might reach them, and Night Thunder, seeing her action, gave her a cool grin.

He said, “My country is beautiful, is it not?”

She nodded. “It most certainly is.”

They had come upon the stream, the clear water which ran there reflecting the shimmering stars overhead and the outline of the willow trees which ran along its bank. Had she ever seen anything more beautiful? She thought of her own beloved Ireland, yet never having witnessed its shores, she couldn’t have said whether it would be worthy competition to this place or not.

She drew a deep breath, and looking down, dipped her big toe into the fast-moving water, screeching a little at the frostiness of the stream. She glanced back at Night Thunder where he stood behind her. “It’s cold,” she said.

“
Aa,
yes. That is what we want. What we need, the both of us.”

“I see. Will you turn your back?”

“Must I?”

“Aye, you must.”

She couldn’t see his features plainly, yet when he spoke to her, there was a hint of humor in his tone. “You have seen me without my clothes. Why should I not witness the beauty of you, too?”

“Because that is different and you know it,” she answered. “Turn your back, now.”

Laughing slightly, he faced around, though he said, “I will not always be able to stay with my back to you throughout your entire bath. I must stand on guard for you because there are animals that sometimes like to come to the water and drink in the evening. Some of them are dangerous.”

“What sort of animals?”

“
Aa,
there are elk, some deer, maybe a bear or two, or a wolf. But the most dangerous animal of all is the man who is standing here watching you.”

She gasped. “There is a man here?”

“
Aa,
yes, there is.”

“Night Thunder, why aren’t you—”

“And he is watching you very carefully.”

“He is? Night Thunder, I—” she gasped, until it dawned on her exactly whom he meant.

“You tease me, I think,” she said. “It is all right for that man—you—to be here, so long as you do not look at me.”

“
Aa
,” was all he said.

She made sure he was doing exactly as she had instructed, and seeing only his back turned toward her, she began to remove her clothes. She set them aside, at a distance not too far from shore, yet not too close. She didn’t want her things to get wet. The night was cool, for all that there was a comfortable wind, and she wanted the clothing dry so that it might warm her after her bath.

She had removed her dress, her slippers, and her petticoat, and was down to only her chemise when he asked her, “Why are you not already married?”

She hesitated a moment. “I almost was once.”

“Almost? What happened that you are not?”

She stared off in the distance, seeing without really taking note of the willow and cottonwood trees on the far shore of the stream. She said, “He was a sailor.”

“A sailor?”

“Aye, a sailor. That is a person who makes his living by navigating boats on the water, taking things to and from other places. It is a good way to earn a living, but a dangerous one. We almost had enough money, enough goods set aside to buy our own place. It was only one last run he had to make at sea before our marriage. I never saw him again. He was drowned off the coast of North Carolina,” she hesitated, amazed at the sob which threatened to tear at her throat, even after all this time. “Th-that’s a place far away, in the east.”

“Humph,” he said. “The Water People took him, then?”

“The what?”

“The people who live beneath the water. One must be ever careful not to anger them, lest they take your life when you do nothing more than bathe or swim.”

She nodded. “Aye, I suppose you could say that the water people took him.”

“Then do not fret. It is said they live a good life underwater.”

This time she couldn’t help it. She sobbed. And before she could utter another sound, he had turned around, had taken the few short steps necessary to reach her, and had taken her in his arms.

“I should not have asked,” he whispered against her hair. “I should have let you tell me about it when you felt that you could. I am sorry I caused you to think on this thing.”

“It…it is nothing. Do not fret. You have done nothing that warrants an apology.”

His chest moved as he chuckled, and he asked, “You think not?”

She didn’t understand him. But soon, feeling the length of him as he stood so closely to her, she became more than aware of him and how little they each wore. She didn’t move away, however. She knew she should if she were to protect her dignity, but she didn’t want to; his embrace felt too good.

She could not think clearly and she found herself asking, “Oh, Night Thunder, do you feel it, too?”

“
Aa.
”

“And what do you feel?”

“How good you are in my arms,” he answered. “How much I want to hold you. How much I want to do other things to you, with you.”

She sighed. “How ever did this happen to us?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, bending his head slightly, he kissed her—something, despite herself, that she’d been desiring him to do all evening.

She kissed him back, too. How could she not?

It was not a gentle kiss, although it started out that way. But it escalated—quickly. After all, they had already had a taste of one another. Instinctively, now, they knew what they wanted.

His hands came up to hold her face as he let his lips encompass and take over hers. She moaned. One of his hands caressed her cheek, the other moved down to her neck, while his lips foraged hers. Her arms slid around his shoulders, grabbed onto his neck.

His tongue swept into her mouth. And she melted. Saints be praised, she melted. Her fiancé had never kissed her this way. This was…
heaven.
She moaned again.

Or had he?

His lips moved down to a sensitive spot on her neck and she felt her knees buckle under her. But he held her up. She almost cried aloud from the pleasure of it.

His lips came back to hers and she felt a need to devour him, body and soul. She couldn’t get enough of this, of him, and it was too much to consider where this was all leading. Instead, she settled in closer to him.

He groaned before he said, “Do we marry, then?”

She had trouble understanding him, though he spoke in English. She asked, as though she had never heard the word before, “Marry?”

“
Aa,
yes, do we marry?”

Though she understood the words, she still couldn’t quite comprehend what he was asking her or why. Feeling dizzy with need, she asked, “Marry? Why would we marry?”

“Because I am about to love you, and in my village, when a man loves a woman in this way, either he marries her and makes her his sits-beside-him wife, or he ruins her. I do not wish to ruin you.”

Marriage? Ruin? She tried to think clearly, but her mind was a blur. “Night Thunder…I…don’t know what to say. I am not certain I meant to marry you. But it seems I’m not acting like myself at the moment…” She chanced to look up at him. “I would like you to kiss me again, though.”

What was she saying, inviting him on like this? Yet she couldn’t seem to help herself, not when they stood together as they were.

He stared down at her; she, back up at him. Moment followed long moment as they stood saying nothing, though the look in their eyes communicated what remained unsaid between them…respect, trust, desire, love…love? Where had that thought come from? She didn’t love him, did she? She couldn’t love him.

Still, if it wasn’t a love of sorts that she felt, what was it? Admiration? Respect?

As he lowered his head toward her, they kissed again, hungrily, coming together and embracing one another as though their bodies were magnetic. He ran his hands up and down her back while hers traced the contours of his bare chest.

He shivered, breaking the kiss between them, and raising his head only slightly, he said, “I will make a good husband to you. I will be kind, I promise.”

“Aye,” she said, “I know that you would.”

“Then let us make the vow between us now.”

She swallowed, the sound of it noisy even to her ears. “I…I cannot.”

“I do not understand. Why can you not?”

“I…” She cast her gaze down. “I cannot tell it to you.”

“But you want me?”

“I—” She broke off.

He hesitated, and she could feel the heat of his glance radiating over the top of her head. “We belong together, I believe. We have known each other many months now as friends, but there is more between us, I think. Do you not see how we fit each other perfectly? I know that you must feel the same passion that I do. Do you not already feel it, the force between us here?” He put his hand to his heart, “when our lips touch?”

“I…”

“Do you deny it?”

“No, I…I cannot.”

“
Aa,
then we will marry here and now.”

“No, I cannot do that, either.”

“Why? Do you not see that if we do not do the right thing here, at this very moment, you could be ruined? The feeling between us, it is too strong to be long ignored. Is there something else that I do not know?”

She balked at telling him the truth. Twice she opened her mouth to speak; twice she said nothing. She backed away from him, letting his arms fall from around her.

What could she tell him? That she could permit nothing more than a simple yearning for him? That she could never marry him, no matter the passion between them? That she was prejudiced?

She couldn’t very well tell him about the dream she had envisioned all her life, as yet unfulfilled. She’d not tell him, the man who had saved her life, that she could not marry him because she hadn’t yet attended a dance. That would sound petty, mean and fairly silly.

Yet wasn’t it the truth? She couldn’t give up her illusions.

She brought back to mind the balls her parents had thrown when she’d been a child, recalling the laughter, the gaiety. And she remembered her hope that someday, somehow, she would have all that. It might seem a foolish fantasy to another; for her it was real.

That her life had become a tangle of misfortune, that her parents’ wealth had turned out to be barely enough to cover their debts, had all been hardships she’d had to face, alone. How could she explain that in the midst of all that pain, the agony, the only thing she’d had to cling to had been her dreams?

She chanced to look up at Night Thunder, who stared back at her steadily, patiently awaiting her response.

Finally, not knowing what to say, what to do, she began to tell him, “I am not Indian, you are not white. Our two ways are different. I would not fit into your world, nor am I certain I would want to. I cannot deny that we appear to have a…a feeling for one another, but it will pass with time, don’t you think? I respect and admire you, but it can go no further than that.”

“It already has gone further than—”

“No.” She held up her hand, silencing him. “It has not. Not yet. If I were to marry you, soon I would be bearing your children, and if that happened, I could never again be a part of my own society.”

“Is that so terrible? I vow that I will do all that I can to make your life pleasant.”

“Aye,” she said, and she smiled slightly before she continued. “But I would still be unhappy. For there is one thing you could never give me that I would be missing for all the rest of my days.”

He didn’t say a word, and his silence seemed to encourage her to continue. She looked up toward him quickly, giving him an erstwhile glance, “Do you promise not to laugh at me, if I tell this to you now?”