White Dawn (9 page)

Cartier pulled on thick, leather gloves, then took several large hunks of raw meat from a tin just outside the door. He strode toward the tree a short distance from the shack. Curious despite herself, Emily followed and watched him stop in front of it. To her surprise, there on the lowest branch sat a hawk with a leather hood covering its eyes.

He murmured something. The bird flapped its wings in response. The man’s laugh filled the air. “Smell your supper, do you?” He untied the leather strip that tethered the bird to the perch, then held his gloved hand out to touch the bird gently on the breast. It stepped onto his gloved finger. Using his thumb to hold the hawk’s feet in place, John removed the small leather hood. The bird ruffled its feathers, shook its head, then let out a loud screech. As if happy, it threw back its head and flapped its wings.

Cartier laughed and held the bird out from him. “That’s it. You’re getting stronger. A few more days of rest should do it.” After letting the hawk exercise its wings some more, he put the bird back on the branch and tethered one leg, but left the hood off. He impaled several chunks of meat on nailheads driven into the branch, then filled a tin of water that had been fastened to the other end of the perch.

Something in Emily responded to the way this gentle giant of a man handled the bird. He wasn’t her idea of a coarse, rough trapper. Though looking at him, she certainly didn’t get the impression that he even knew the meaning of gentle.

For the first time since he’d brought her here, she really looked at John Cartier. He was as different from her warrior as a hawk from an eagle. He was tall, wide and packed with solid muscle. But contrary to his size, he moved with a slow, easy grace that rivaled that of her Indian. It intrigued her.

Once the hawk had finished eating, John Cartier placed the hood back over the bird’s head and removed his gloves. Emily stared at his hands: ham-sized hands that looked as though they were made for smashing faces. This man could easily crush that bird—or her—with one of those hands, yet he was gentle.

Moving her gaze upward, Emily noted that his hair, nearly black in the shade, looked browner in the sun. To her surprise, the light glittered off it in red highlights. Cartier wore it combed neatly and held in a long tail behind his head. She’d never seen hair comprised of so many different shades. Her warrior’s hair had all been a soft black.

A shaft of pain hit when she thought of how his long, flowing hair had caressed her when he made love to her. She’d loved his hair.

Trying to put the painful memories aside, Emily focused on the biggest difference between the two men. John’s face was covered with a full, dark beard. She couldn’t tell what he looked like beneath it, but it didn’t seem to matter. Of all his features, it was his gentle, direct, sherry-colored gaze that told her this man was one she could trust. His eyes mirrored the goodness she sensed within him.

John left the animal to go and grab a blanket from inside the shack, and her leather pouch of food. “You don’t mind if we eat while we’re waiting do you? Or if we share these berries you picked?”

Emily shrugged. “No.”

“Good. ’Cause I love berries.” He smiled; then his eyes roamed downward. Apparently overcome by a sudden discomfort, he gulped, then strode back into his cabin.

Emily glanced down and, seeing her nipples jutting out, pressing against her nearly sheer shift, she flushed. So accustomed she’d become to wearing little clothing she’d forgotten how threadbare her shift had become—not to mention all the places it had torn. Embarrassed, she crossed her arms across her chest, wishing she had something else to wear. She wasn’t even sure where her skirt was.

Deciding to fetch the blanket she’d used earlier, she hesitated when John returned. He held out a buckskin shirt. “Here,” he said, his voice deep and rough. “It’s big but clean. You’ll swim in it, but it’ll keep you warm.”

And covered.
The words hung between them. Red in the face, Emily turned around and pulled the garment over her head. The sleeves fell past her fingertips, and the hem nearly to her knees. She wanted to say something, to explain why she wore only a thin shift, but nothing came out but a faint “Thank you.” She couldn’t look at him.

His finger slid beneath her chin and tipped her gaze to his. “You’re welcome. And, Emily, you’re safe with me.”

Staring into his deerlike brown eyes, Emily believed him. Never had she felt so safe—yet so vulnerable.

John turned away and whistled, startling her. To her surprise, she saw a wolf come running—on three legs. The animal went to John, and even from where she stood, she saw the devotion in the wolf’s intelligent eyes.

Leading the way, John set off. “I want to be back before dark,” he said, his voice gruff.

They reached the glade a short time later, and Emily got some answers—but she wasn’t sure what they meant. As soon as she entered the quiet meadow, she ran to the spot where she and her Indian lover had spent the night. But, to her dismay, the furs and the water pouch were gone. Only her skirt and the broken waterskin remained to prove that this was the spot where John had found her.

Had her warrior come back? Had he never really left? She’d felt his presence, felt his eyes on her. Had he waited until she’d left to reclaim his possessions? Was he now gone forever? It seemed the only answer. Numb with the pain of rejection, Emily sank down and buried her head in her hands.

John leaned against the log, his rifle lying across his lap and Fang resting beside him. Emily sat a few feet away, unmoving. He’d tried to convince her to return for the night but she’d refused. Short of physically carrying her back, he could do nothing but wait with her.

He knew she was upset. He’d been unnerved to find the furs gone, himself. It meant the man she desperately sought had likely come back. Or someone else had come upon the items—but John would bet all his money it had been the same one who’d left her here. The question was, why? This was one of his favorite places to go, and he usually strolled through here each morning. Had the Indian known that John would find her? Had he wanted to return her to a white man? John didn’t know, and he didn’t voice his thoughts aloud. Emily was far too upset as it was.

He shifted, uneasy. He didn’t like sitting out in the open, exposed and vulnerable. The decaying log, though large, offered little protection in the event of an attack. He grimaced. Any attack from her captor would come silent and swift. His rifle wouldn’t offer him much advantage against arrows shot from the shadows of the trees.

Though he didn’t believe the savage who’d left her would return for her, John tried to stay aware of his surroundings, yet found himself distracted by Emily. She sat, her back against the log, knees drawn up to her chest, palms resting on her opposite forearms. She looked so lost, so forlorn, he’d have done anything to ease her pain and put a smile on her face.

She hadn’t spoken a word, just stared straight ahead. Looking at her, one would almost think she was just soaking up the late-afternoon sun, but for her white-knuckled fingers and the white spots on each arm from gripping herself so tightly. He suspected she’d have bruises on her arms from her own death grip. He wished he knew what had happened to her. Maybe then he could help put things to rights. First, though, he had to gain her trust. Picking up her bulging leather bag, he drew out a handful of berries. “Food?” he asked, holding the pouch out to her.

No response. “Emily?”

She shook her head, her body so tense he feared she was near breaking. His gaze took in her profile. Her blue eyes were glassy with suppressed tears, her lips were chapped and bleeding from her constant gnawing on them, and her skin was too pale and drawn. Long strands of blond hair draped over her shoulder, followed the curve of her slender neck, then fell straight down to rest on the inside curve of her breast.

Though he couldn’t see them through his shirt, not even the outline, he knew her breasts were there, that the tips were a pale pink and that they’d more than fill his hands. He tore his gaze away to stare at his hands. Big hands.
Damn.
He shook himself mentally and tried hard to get the seductive image of her standing in the sun, wearing a nearly see-through shift, out of his mind.

It was impossible. Not much had been hidden from him. Only the texture of her skin, the feel of it on his, had been left to his imagination. He tried again not to think of her as an attractive and very desirable woman, then stifled a groan. He was only a man—a man who’d lived far too long in a male-dominated world. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d bedded a woman.

The girl sat close enough that he could see the dusting of freckles on her face, feel the heat radiating from her body, and smell the scent of woman—yet they were separated by a barrier much harder to cross than distance. His body was fraught with frustrated need. He had to keep telling himself that she wasn’t his, over and over.

The fact that she was the woman of his dreams, his fanciful Lady Dawn, the woman he’d created in his mind to give him something to look forward to once he left and returned to civilization, didn’t help. How could he ignore her beauty? A single tear slipped down her smooth cheek. A flyaway strand of silvery hair stuck to her face, near the corner of her mouth.

John itched to reach over and gently brush her hair back, but he didn’t, fearing she’d shatter like a sheet of glass if he so much as touched her. Her pain tore through him like a gunshot. He rubbed a place on his shin, recalling his first winter out here, when he and his cousin had been learning to shoot.

Willy had been horsing around, not realizing the shotgun was loaded. The gun had gone off and the pellets had passed through the fleshy part of John’s leg. Though only a flesh wound, it had hurt like hell.

Minutes ticked by. The shadows lengthened as the sun began its descent in the sky. Keeping his voice low and calm, he spoke. “Emily, we have to return.”

“You go. I’m staying here.” Her flat, emotionless voice scared him more than her earlier sobs.

“I can’t leave you here by yourself.” When she didn’t respond, he knew he had only one choice, for he didn’t want to take her against her will. Clearing a spot close by, he scraped out a fire pit and gathered dried grass and small twigs. Then he collected large pieces of fallen trees and started a fire. Sitting across from her in the dark, he watched orange-red flames begin to dance, their heated color reflected in her eyes.

All through the night, John kept the fire going. It was warm enough that they didn’t need more blankets than the one she sat upon—which was good, because he refused to leave her alone even for the time it would take him to go fetch them. Instead, he talked. He told her stories of his time as a trapper. He even tried to sing—anything to get a reaction from her. Fang howled in protest, but the woman continued to stare off into the night.

By the time the moon had risen fully, and the stars popped out across the sky, John couldn’t think of anything else to say. He wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. Then he watched. There was nothing else he could do. She refused food. Refused water. Refused even to lie down. At last, giving in to her desire to be alone, he moved over to lean against the log next to her.

Somewhere in those bleak, early hours, she slumped against the log in uneasy slumber. Looking over, he wasn’t able to leave her in such an uncomfortable position. He meant to lay her down on her blanket, but as he moved to reposition her, she cuddled close to him. Doing so, she seemed to relax and fall into a deeper, more restful sleep. Unable to resist, he drew her close, brushed the silvery strands of hair from her face, and reveled in her smooth skin.

At last, he finally dozed off himself.

Emily dreamed. Her warrior had returned. She saw herself running through the meadow to greet him. As if she were swimming in a bog, her body movements were slow, a struggle. She had to hurry, had to reach him before he disappeared again. She couldn’t let him leave her.

Yet the closer she got, the farther away he appeared. She heard his heart beating, felt each breath he took. Felt his arms encircling her even though he seemed so far away.
Come back,
she called.
Come back!
He faded, yet his heartbeat remained loud, pounding against her ear. Frowning, she wrinkled her brows. Hot breath feathered across her forehead.

A soft snort startled her. Caught in that curious place between waking and dreaming, she wrinkled her brows. The heartbeat was real, she realized—as was the warm breath. She smiled and snuggled closer. He’d come back. He was here, holding her. She slid her arms around him. Something didn’t feel right. He seemed so big. So much larger around the chest. He moved. Something rough scraped against the top of her head.

Her eyes snapped open. Fright held her immobile. The man she clung to wasn’t her warrior. She tipped her head back and let out a shocked cry when she realized that she lay cuddled next to John Cartier.

The sound woke him. For a moment he looked as confused as she felt. Then he grinned, a silly, sleepy expression.

“Mornin’, Lady Dawn,” he said, reaching out to brush the hair from her face.

In a stupor, she stared at him. “What… How?” She glanced around, then calmed as she realized they’d spent the night in the glade. Then the truth hit. Her Indian warrior hadn’t come back. There was no denying the truth now: he’d left her behind.
No!
She refused to accept that. Something had happened to him. He’d left her before but always returned.

He came back and took the furs,
she reminded herself.

Why hadn’t he come for her? He could have found her. She knew he could have, had he wanted to.

Beside her, John shifted, putting space between them as he stretched, then stood. “I don’t know about you, but I could eat a horse. Shall we go back and fix something to break our fast?”

Emily shook her head. She didn’t want food. She wanted the man she loved back in her arms.

Impatience lined John’s voice. “Emily, he isn’t coming back. For whatever reason, he left you here. You have to snap out of it.”