Warrior's Embrace (46 page)

“You always did get right to the point,
Cole.”

“And you didn’t answer the question.”

“It’s not a social call.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Some of our people have been destroying
Kate’s clinic.”

Not Dr. Colbert’s clinic, but Kate’s clinic.
Cole’s mouth tightened. The slip of his brother’s lip was
telling.

“Do you know anything about it, Cole?”

“Are you accusing me?”

“I’m not accusing you. Father said you’d been
at the hunting cabin the last few days. I thought you might have
seen something.”

“What I’ve seen is almost too shameful to
speak of.” Cole’s hands tightened into fists. “What I’ve seen makes
me want to deny I have a brother.”

Eagle willed himself to stillness.
Kate
. A thousand times he’d questioned his obsession with
her; a hundred times he’d ridden the land and sighted the places
that needed better roads and modern bridges. It was time, past
time, to be about his life’s work; but all it took was a glimpse of
her hair or the sound of her voice, filled with the soft, seductive
cadences of her native South Carolina, and he was her love slave,
hungering to bury himself in her fragrant body.

Was it any wonder that his brother should
question too?

“You judge me, Cole. You judge without
knowing and without hearing.”

“I’ve seen enough. She has led you astray,
Eagle. With her bright hair and her white thighs she has made you
forget who you are.”

“I will never forget who I am. I am
Eagle.”

“She’s a white woman. Would you have her bear
pale-skinned sons who don’t know a stallion from a jackass?”

“She will not bear my sons.”

“How can you expect otherwise? You’ve rutted
her like a damned bull. Every time you look at her, she opens her
legs.”

Eagle drew back his fist, wanting nothing
more than to smash his brother’s face. He pictured the satisfying
crunch of bone against bone, the sharp sting of flesh battering
flesh.

“Hit me, Eagle. That’s what the white whore
has brought us to. Brother against brother.”

Every muscle in Eagle’s body tensed, and his
blood, hot for battle, roared in his ears. In the humming silence
the brothers watched each other; then slowly Eagle lowered his
fist.

“I’m ashamed that you spied.”

“I didn’t spy. I was riding by the river on
the way to the hunting cabin. It didn’t take a damned Philadelphia
lawyer to figure out what was going on.”

“You will not speak of her again.”

“The whole village speaks of her, riding all
over the countryside on your white mare ...with you at her side.” A
muscle in the side of Cole’s jaw clenched and unclenched. From the
distance came the sound of his boys’ laughter as they streaked out
of the barn toward the house. The back door slammed, and there was
more giggling as Anna ordered hands and faces washed.

Softened, Cole put his hand on Eagle’s
shoulder. He wanted only what was best for his brother.

“Don’t jeopardize everything you’ve worked
for because of this woman.”

“She will not turn me away from my visions.”
Eagle whistled for his stallion, then turned back to Cole. “She is
necessary to me.”

Love and anger, envy and admiration, mingled
in Cole’s heart as Eagle leapt on the stallion’s back and galloped
away.

He watched until his brother was out of
sight, then went inside to join his wife and sons.

“Is Eagle staying for dinner?” Anna
asked.

“No. He had other things on his mind.”

o0o

Kate sat on the edge of the bed with her
mother’s letter open on her lap. It was a long, newsy letter
telling about Dottie Brainbridge’s new baby and Nancy Kellerman’s
wedding dress that was shipped all the way from Neiman’s in Dallas
and Barb Rothchild’s operatic debut in Atlanta.

“Charleston has been full of tourists all
summer long,” Martha had written in her spidery hand, “and you know
how your father hates tourists. I love them though. It perks one up
to see the expectant look on their faces as they walk our
cobblestone streets and sit under umbrellas, eating our famous
pecan pie.”

Kate had left the window open, and breezes
stirred the blue curtains. Flapping, they looked like the broken
wings of birds.

She wished she could see her mother’s face,
bright because the sight of strangers enjoying themselves made her
happy.

“The cape jasmine beside the patio still
blooms,” Martha wrote. “It seems unwilling to acknowledge that
summer is almost over.”

Suddenly Kate was so lonesome for the smell
of jasmine that she put her head between her hands and cried.

There was no one to hear, for Dr. Colbert had
driven into Ada for lunch with friends. She gave vent to her tears
until the far-off cry of a hawk reminded her of the many things she
had to be grateful for in this strange and beautiful land.

She wiped her face and folded the letter. How
silly of her to be crying over jasmine.

Perhaps it wasn’t southern flowers she was
lonesome for, but friends. In South Carolina she could pick up the
phone and call any of a dozen numbers, and there would be somebody
on the other end of the line who would come over and talk for hours
about anything under the sun, or who would join Kate for a walk on
the beach or a drive into town to catch a movie or go on a shopping
spree or merely for a reprieve in the shade of a striped umbrella
at an outdoor café, where they would sip iced tea with a sprig of
mint.

Here people moved to the other side of the
street at her approach, or stared at her as if she were an alien
who had recently landed from another planet. Sometimes they
whispered behind their hands when she approached on her white
horse.

There was another thing. The horse.

She probably would never have taken it if
he’d said it was a gift. And yet she hadn’t put up much of a
fight—any fight at all, to tell the truth—about taking it so she
could race all over the countryside just to be in his bed. Or on
his blanket, as the case happened to be.

Bought for the price of a horse.

Her South Carolina friends would be shocked.
Even her mother, indulgent as she was, might not approve.

She really ought to give the horse back. The
bad part was that she didn’t want to. The horse was her link to
Eagle, and without Eagle she’d be desolate, a garden deprived of
rain and sunlight, withering away in a sometimes-hostile land.

The mere thought of Eagle made her body go
liquid. She wanted to race across the plains till she found him,
then throw herself into his arms and have him do wonderful, exotic,
erotic things to her in broad daylight.

The last time they were together—only six
hours earlier, as a matter of fact, because she’d counted—he’d
painted her face and breasts with vermilion and she’d painted him
with cobalt. Remembering, shivers of pleasure ran through
her....

“You are Mother Earth.” His fingers were
slick with paint and warm with lust, and they left trails of
shivers where vermilion stained her skin, “You are rich and ripe
and receptive to the penetration of rain from Father Sky.”

The blue paint pot was at her fingertips.
Bending over Eagle with her hair brushing his chest, she caressed
his face, spreading the blue paint, infusing him with the power of
Father Sky. .

“
Ihullo uno, iskunosi Wictonaye
,” he
whispered. “
Ihullo uno
....”

It was hours later when she learned what he’d
said. “Love me, little wildcat. Love me.

Remembering, she walked to the window and let
the breeze cool her face.

Love
. Oh, God, she couldn’t be in
love with Eagle Mingo. Not after what Deborah had told her: “The
Mingoes trace their lineage all the way back to Chief Piomingo.
They
never
marry one who is not full-blood.”

Besides that, there was her own work. How
could she save lives if she spent most of her time wallowing on
Eagle Mingo’s blanket and the rest of her time thinking about
it?

No, she was obsessed. That was all.

The thing to do was find Deborah and plan a
sightseeing trip to Ada. After all, it was the capital of the
Chickasaw Nation and she’d never even seen it. Then she’d take
Mahli back to Eagle and tell him the affair was finished and they
should both get on with their work.

Altogether, it was a sensible plan.

Filled with purpose, Kate hurried to the
small stable behind Dr. Colbert’s cottage, calling to the mare as
she went.

Mahli knew the sound of Kate’s voice. The
mare tossed her mane and pranced in place and whinnied.

“You like me, old girl, don’t you.” Kate
rubbed the mare’s soft nose. “Yes, you do.”

The mare whinnied once more. It wasn’t much
in the way of conversation, but it was about all Kate had.

She swung the Indian blanket on Mahli’s back
and fastened the bridle. Then she led the horse outside and vaulted
on, Native American-style. Eagle had taught her many things, most
of them erotic, but some of them practical.

When she saw Deborah, the sensible plan went
right out of Kate’s head. Deborah’s once-sleek, beautiful hair was
a frizzy halo of reddish-purple around her lovely face.

Ignoring the stares and whispers that
followed her down the crowded aisles of the general store, Kate
hurried toward her friend.

“Just look at me.” Smiling ruefully, Deborah
grabbed a handful of her hair and held it out for Kate’s
inspection. “I look like an Irish setter with a coat full of
cockleburs.”

“Who did that to you, Deborah?”

“I did. It all sounded so simple when I read
the instructions. Bleach out the black and pour on the red. Then,
presto! I’d look like the beautiful medicine woman.”

Kate wanted to weep for the lost beauty of
Deborah’s hair. Instead, she said, “We’ll go into Ada and find a
good hair stylist who can fix you right up.” Seeing the girl’s
crestfallen look, she added quickly, “My treat.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“With pleasure. It will be small repayment
for all you’ve done for me.”

Deborah gave Kate a broad smile. “You’ve got
that right. Only yesterday I told two old setting hens clucking
about you and Eagle that it was none of their business. They huffed
out without buying a thing, but I didn’t care.”

Deborah turned to look at herself in the
small cracked mirror that hung behind the cash register. Her ugly
face topped by wrecked hair stared back at her.

“Irish setters are beautiful,” she said
morosely. “This looks more like a fox’s tail.”

“I’m sure a good hairdresser will know what
to do,” Kate said. “Soon your hair will be as gorgeous as
ever.”

Deborah fought the tears that threatened.
Kate was the kindest woman she knew, almost like a mother, except
that she was far too young and beautiful. She had troubles enough
of her own without Deborah wailing like a coyote over her silly
hair.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll just whack it
all off and start over. Hair grows, you know.”

Kate covered her disappointment by reaching
for Deborah’s hand.

“I understand,” she said.

“My father . . .”

“Shhh ...you don’t have to explain.”

“He found that material on nursing schools
you brought me and he was awfully mad.”

“I’m sorry Deborah. I didn’t mean to cause
trouble for you.”

Torn between loyalty to her father and her
good friend, Deborah tried to make amends.

“He’s a good man. Really, he is. Not like
everybody else. They say you’re a witch and Eagle is under your
spell.”

“Nonsense. There’s no such thing as witches
and spells.” A flush heated Kate’s neck. “Besides that, Eagle Mingo
is not the kind of man who falls under spells.”

A romantic at heart, Deborah thought it only
fitting that the son of the governor should marry the most
beautiful woman in Witch Dance and the daughter of a U. S. senator
besides. A mating of royalty. Suddenly she had a brilliant idea how
she could accomplish that goal and repay Kate for her kindness and
friendship at the same time.

“I have much experience with many boyfriends
and from reading novels where the nurse always gets the doctor.
I’ll teach you how to make him fall under your spell.”

“Thanks, Deborah, but I think I’ll pass.”
Kate lifted her heavy hair off her neck. “My, it’s hot in
here.”

Riveted, Deborah leaned forward and touched
Kate’s skin just below the earlobe. Her finger came away red and
blue.

“That looks like war paint.”

Kate flushed scarlet. Her mother had always
warned her to wash behind her ears. In her hasty bath, she’d missed
the telltale evidence of her night of passion with Eagle.

She was saved by a commotion at the front of
the store. Eagle Mingo was galloping by on his black stallion, and
the rush toward the windows emptied the aisles of the store.

He sat tall and proud in the saddle with the
wind in his hair and the sun on his face.

Bewitched
,
bewitched
, her
mind whispered. But it wasn’t she who had bewitched Eagle; it was
he who had bewitched her.

Kate leaned against the counter, weak with
wanting, and as the sound of hoof beats died away, she knew with
absolute certainty that she couldn’t return the horse and end the
affair; that, in fact, she would take the first opportunity to
mount the horse and fly through the darkness to Eagle.

Now and always.

o0o

Clayton heard her leave.

He lay in his bed, listening to her soft
footsteps in the hall. The back door creaked on its hinges, and
then the sound of hoof beats filled the night.

Kate. Riding to meet her lover. Flying to him
on the wind as she had every night for the past two weeks.

The nights were torture for Clayton, and the
days even worse. Flashes of them came to him in short bursts of
color and agony. Eagle on the clinic rooftop putting on shingles
and Kate gazing up at him as if he were the sun. Eagle, his bare
chest shining with sweat, bending while Kate poured water over his
head. Eagle and Kate. Kate and Eagle. The secret smiles. The secret
touches.