by Donna Cooner
She made an impatient sound, trying to push away from him, but he was suddenly braced over her again, and maybe it was just as well. They were going to have it out. She stared up at him.
“No, you were the one in the Seminole camp seeing that more and more ridiculous chores were set upon your already terrified wife!”
“They told you they wouldn’t hurt you,” he said, and perhaps an evasive shadow did cloud his dark stare.
“There are dozens of whites dead across the territory, but I should have felt reassured!”
“You should have felt damned lucky!” he said with a touch of irritation. “Not many whites would have received no more than a tongue lashing from Osceola at this moment.”
“Osceola!” she repeated, shuddering. “My God. He was the man with the feathered bonnet and the red leggings!”
“Yes.”
She felt a trembling deep inside her. Osceola, possibly the strongest war chief among these heathens now! And he had come upon her in the woods! He might have—
“Oh!” she gasped, suddenly slamming her fists against his chest with a rage born of renewed terror. “You left me in this savage wilderness to be taken by Osceola, a savage who absolutely hates all whites—”
“He doesn’t hate all whites.”
“That’s right—he just thinks the world of you!”
“He’s an exceptionally smart fellow who has seen what has happened to his people, yet he does not hate all whites. He is at war with them, yes.”
“I do hope you’re around to explain the difference the next time he is murdering and scalping your friends and neighbors! Damn you! You left me to—”
“I left you at home, where you had been warned to stay!” he roared in return, catching the fists that had so recently pummeled him. “By the time I found your trail, you had already been taken here.”
“And you could have made your presence known hours and hours ago!” she cried.
He didn’t deny it.
“You did tell them to make me do all those things!”
His eyes narrowed, hardened. “You were warned not to leave the property. If you hadn’t been running away—”
“I wasn’t running away!” she protested angrily.
“Then what were you doing?” he demanded.
She opened her mouth, then wondered if it wouldn’t be worse to say that she had been trying to reach Robert Treat. Robert was his friend, his best friend, she knew, but she was aware that she had tried upon occasion to make Jarrett jealous where Robert was concerned. Perhaps to soothe her own soul.
“I wasn’t running away,” she repeated.
He leaned closer to her. “Where were you going?”
“Oh, no!” she protested indignantly. “I’m not answering another question from you. ‘White Tiger,’ indeed! What is going on here? The blue-eyed one—what’s his name?”
“Running Bear,” Jarrett said after a moment.
“Running Bear—who is capable of speaking such perfect English!” Tara said bitterly.
“Completely perfect,” Jarrett agreed.
She leveled her stare on him, wishing he weren’t still straddling her, his hold looser but his fingers still wound around her wrists. The intimacy wasn’t painful, but it was distracting. She was very much aware of his hard body, of his sex, at rest, yet still so insinuating against her belly. It was difficult to breathe. She felt as if she were gasping in huge breaths of air, and with each it seemed that her breasts rose and fell a bit more quickly.
“And,” she commented, “it seems that your Seminole is just as perfect. Is that what you were speaking?”
“It’s a Muskogee language.”
“Muskogee?”
He shrugged. “I speak Hitichi almost as well. It isn’t a great feat, really, I grew up hearing both of them frequently.”
“Growing—up?” she demanded.
He didn’t reply.
“I want to know now,” she said stubbornly. “What was he talking about? What haven’t you told me?”
He released her, rolling to his side once again, staring up at the ceiling. He lifted his hands, then let them fall back to his chest.
“James McKenzie.”
“What?”
“Running Bear. He is also known as James McKenzie.”
She inhaled a ragged gasp. “But—”
“He’s my brother, Tara.” He rolled up on an elbow, with the speed and grace of a snake this time, staring at her again. “William is your brother, Tara. James is mine.”
She gasped, bolting up. Dear God, yes! But it made sense! She had thought that Jarrett was the Indian, from the back, with his head of ebony hair, and the brothers were so close in height and build.
So he had a Seminole for a brother! And he had grown up among the Indians! No wonder he was so damned certain that he’d be safe among them.
And he hadn’t told her!
“You bastard!” she breathed. “Oh!” Once again she flung herself at him, and this time with such force that he fell to his back and she straddled him, fists clenched, flailing at his shoulders and chest.
“Tara!”
But she didn’t stop.
“Tara!”
Once again she found herself breathless, heaving, and locked beneath him. Her wrists were imprisoned in his grasp. His thighs locked around her hips.
“Oh, I swear I will—shoot you!” she threatened.
“Tara—”
“In both knees! And I’ll scalp you and—”
“You’ll hush up before your voice carries any farther!” he warned her.
“I’ll tell you exactly what I think of you, just as loudly as I—”
“You’ll close your mouth, my love.”
“I—”
“I’ll close it for you.”
“How dare you—”
But he did dare, easily, his lips sealing her own, his tongue thrusting to fill her mouth, the force of his kiss robbing her of breath. When his lips parted from hers at last, she couldn’t quite grasp why she had been shouting. She inhaled raggedly and told him, “This is no way to carry on a conversation.”
A smile curled the left side of his mouth just slightly, and a speck of fire seemed to glimmer in his eyes. “We weren’t conversing. We were arguing.”
“And I tell you—”
“And I warn you, don’t try to make a fool of me here!”
“And what have you done to me?”
“I’ve tried to show you the dangers that await wandering wives.”
“You son of—”
“I don’t want to have to teach you more about disobedient ones!”
“Of all the—” she began, but once again she found herself silenced, his lips stealing breath and words this time. Nor when his mouth rose from hers did he intend to allow for further conversation. His hand covered her breast, his mouth clamped down upon it, tongue laving and teasing the tip until she ceased struggling and squirming. Her fingers threaded into his hair, gripping, yet he seemed heedless of their pull, and his hands and lips covered more and more of her with a hungry speed that left her head spinning, her body burning. His kiss burned into the hollow of her abdomen, his hands slid beneath her, cupping her buttocks. She strained against him, crying out even as he nuzzled lower against her belly, against the soft blond triangle between her limbs. Liquid, searing heat seemed to burst within her, shattering in its sensation. She fought both to free herself and to feel more of him, and just when she thought that the world would explode around her, he was with her again, atop her, within her, holding her. Again his rhythm seized her. She eased for just seconds, then seemed to fly ever higher. She trembled when the explosion wracked her this time, amazed at the force of it, of him, the way that it felt to drift downward, held so securely in his arms. She wanted to fight, wanted to protest anew the charade he had played upon her, yet she hadn’t the strength, or the real desire to battle further this night.
In a corner of her mind she still wanted to hate him.
In her heart she was only glad of him, and if he was with her, the rest of his secrets did not seem to matter so much.
His arms were around her, and she put her fingers upon his bronze ones where they lay against her belly.
“I’m going to strangle your brother too,” she told him softly.
“I’m sure he’ll take it like a man.”
“Is that bathtub regular Seminole issue?” she inquired lightly.
“No,” he admitted after a moment, and though her back was to him, she thought that he was smiling. “The bathtub is mine.”
“And this cabin?”
“Mine as well,” he said softly.
“And everyone else knows this?” she said.
“Not too many people have been out here, but most of my friends and acquaintances know that I have a brother out here and that I grew up with a band of Creeks-turned-Seminole.”
“You should really be strung up by your toes and beaten mercilessly,” she said.
“It could still happen. Anything is possible in this wilderness.”
She shivered fiercely.
His arms tightened around her. “I didn’t mean that we were in any danger here.”
“I know!” she whispered. She suddenly turned within his arms, speaking earnestly. “But, Jarrett, don’t you see? Anything is possible! Even I understand that. Osceola is not the only war leader.”
“No, he’s not.”
“Then you can be in danger.”
“Tara, I can handle myself among Creeks, Seminoles, and Mikasukis, I swear it. And,” he added gruffly, “if you’ll just learn to listen to me, you’ll be safe as well.”
“But—”
“Let’s not argue anymore tonight,” he said.
“But—”
“Tara, please. It has been a long day.”
“You don’t know how long!” she charged.
“But I have also had endless days before this one trying to get home,” he told her, and something in his voice caused her to hold her tongue, even when she was longing to keep on questioning him—and even when she was still longing to berate him for what he had put her through today.
“I will answer anything you want to know in the morning,” he told her softly, enclosing her in his arms once again, sweeping her back against his chest. His chin rested atop her head, his fingers entwined around her waist. The fire continued to burn, warm and low and golden.
He had promised to answer all of her questions. She suddenly smiled, burrowing even more closely against him.
It was insane. She was in a savage wilderness, with a people whom her own regarded as savage.
And yet when she closed her eyes, she fell asleep almost instantly.
And slept the most incredibly peaceful sleep.…
James McKenzie leaned against the wall of his cabin near the fire, watching the golden rise of the blaze, waiting.
And growing more impatient by the minute.
He sighed and ran his dark fingers through his hair. Naomi had delivered their “guest” to his brother’s cabin some time ago but when he had gone out to see to his brother’s comforts and needs, he had returned to find Naomi and the children gone. She had said something earlier about the girls staying with his mother. He’d been startled because he knew his wife hadn’t been happy about the strange events of the day, and he hadn’t imagined that she’d be receptive to intimacy tonight. Well, now he knew. Not only were the children sleeping in his mother’s cabin; it seemed his wife planned to do so as well.
His people were Naomi’s people; in their society a man joined his wife’s family. But since most of his mother’s family had been left behind after the Creek Wars, his mother and some of the remnants of her family had come to band together here. Through Mary and her family connections he had the hereditary right to be a mico. Death and disease among Naomi’s clansmen had left him a natural leader here, and he had led the hundred or so people within his talwa for some time now.
He closed his eyes, tired, leaning back. Life had seemed so sweet. Then the war. They had only just begun. He was afraid. He could see the things it seemed so many of the warrior chiefs could not see. But then, he might have lived in the white world almost as easily as he lived in his own; he’d had the education and the resources to do so if he had chosen. But he had fallen in love with Naomi, and their life had evolved here.
Still, they were damned close to the area the whites intended to clean completely of all red men. It was such a big territory, there was so much land. The whites wanted it all.
He opened his eyes and stared at the flames again, a slight smile curving his mouth. In a moment he’d have to go after Naomi. He was the leader here. He had white blood and a very close association with many whites. He was in a precarious position, since he had straddled two societies since birth, receiving a white education while also being encouraged to learn traditional Indian ways. He had danced in ballrooms with the daughters of white politicians, doctors, merchants, and planters, and he had debated and befriended a number of white soldiers. He had spent his life open and honest in his dealings with both whites and Indians—–he had refused to defend his position to either, yet he was well aware of that position himself, and because of it he could not allow anyone to make a fool out of him. Not even his own wife. Not even if he loved her more than anything in the entire world.
But even as he was about to rise to go to his mother’s cabin to retrieve Naomi, the door to his cabin opened slowly.
Maybe she had been hoping he was asleep.
He kept his back very straight and hard against the wall as she entered, staring at her, waiting. Naomi closed the door behind her.
She kept her distance from him, her expression showing her displeasure with the day.
“Where have you been?” he asked her softly, though he knew.
“Now you speak English?” she murmured to him, replying in kind.
“Now I speak English. Where were you?” he repeated.
“With your mother and my children.”
“Our children,” he reminded her politely.
“I had thought you would be asleep.”
He smiled, flatly shaking his head. “You knew that I would not. In another few minutes I would have come for you.”
“Yes,” she said casually. She had known that he would come. He would have had to, to save face. Just as she had felt she must return here before he came for her, to save face.
“I suppose it was good that you brought my brother’s wife to him, rather than allowing her to escape.”
“Oh, yes!” Naomi said, her eyes flashing. “I brought her to him!” She was still angry over her part in the deception.
He rose, lithe, slow, and walked to her. She held her position against the door, her slender jaw locked in anger.
“It was a mean trick.”
“There was no trick intended.”
“Indeed? All that she saw while I remained was the back of a head with black wavy hair. She was most probably terrified that she was about to be raped by a vicious half-breed.”
He stopped before her, not touching her, hiding a slight smile.
“Ah, but she was never in danger of such a wretched fate!”
“Does that mean that I am?” Naomi demanded, chin high.
He no longer hid his smile. “I have never been vicious!” he said in mock indignation. “But other than that—”
Her eyes widened and she turned as if she would bolt out the door. He laughed and swept her up, lifting her into his arms, cradling her tight. He had been in love with her when he married her, enamored of a young girl’s grace and beauty. He had learned to love her more with each passing year, for she was many things, kind to all living creatures, gentle and tender, yet fierce as well in her protection of others. She had matured, she had become the mother of their daughters, but she had remained as lithe and graceful as the young girl he had first seduced by the crystal waters of a bubbling spring, her beauty only deepened wi
th the passage of time.
“James McKenzie!” she said firmly, using his English name primly. “Don’t you think you can force anything after all that you’ve forced me to do to that poor girl today. Don’t—”
“Force!” he exclaimed, having come to the pallets on the floor. He knelt with his wife in his arms, his bronze muscles glistening in the firelight. “Force! Ah, never, my love! Coerce, perhaps, persuade—”
“Seduce!” she accused. And he laughed and laid her down, and stretched out beside her. His mouth found hers while his fingers plied at her clothing. It was quickly gone, along with his own.
Naomi shuddered at the sweet feel of his naked flesh against her own. He loved to be so, close, touching with the length of themselves. She loved it as well, knowing that he wanted her, and knowing, always, he would hold her through the night.
Not even her anger could change that. Mary had told her that anger should not be something to keep a wife from a husband through the night. Naomi had told herself that she had come back because James would have come for her had she not. And he would have come, angry that he had been forced to do so. Even then, though he would appear fierce, though she’d have no choice against his strength, he’d never hurt or force her. He’d have stood in the doorway and stared at her, and told her to come. He’d have stood very tall, stoic, his features so very unusual, handsome, striking, his blue eyes like the cobalt that sometimes arose in a very hot flame. He’d have reached out a hand to her. And she would have come. And if he’d been very angry, they’d have come here and he would have turned his back to her and let her be.
Or else …
Seduced her.
Unless, of course, she hadn’t been able to stand the silence, and she came to him.
And seduced him.
She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to fight. She felt his naked flesh move down the length of her, hot, virile. He was created of muscle, sleek and hard.
He made love as passionately as he chose to live. With fervor, with a strength that swept her breath away. The very earth beneath her seemed to tremble and burn. And when it erupted, she was seized with such a sweet force that it swept away mind and thought and seemed to leave only the soul.