by Pam Crooks
“You're not so different from me,” he rationed. “Have you forgotten you're half-Gaje? And Gaje women often wear their hair free at night.”
Behind her, the fire spit and crackled. She sat unmoving, saying nothing. Boldly, he bent toward her and plucked the kerchief from her head. She gasped and reached for it, but he dangled it away.
“Let your hair dry, Liza,” he said, his tone quiet but determined. “Use my comb if you want.”
She made no attempt to take the comb from his outstretched hand. Her nostrils flared. “Are you afraid I have lice?”
“Hardly.”
“The Gajo woman was. The one you call Rebecca Ann.”
“Ah, yes. Rebecca Ann,” he said dryly. “Prone to hysterics, don't you think?”
“Definitely.”
She sat so stiffly, she could have been made of wood.
Reese wondered what it would take to whittle her down to softness.
“I bathe every day,” she said. He sensed she needed to erase whatever apprehensions he might have about her. “I wash my hair, clean my teeth, and launder my clothes as often as I can when we are not traveling.”
He listened and tried not to smile.
“I do not have lice,” she said firmly.
He couldn't resist curling a hand around her damp neck and pulling her a little closer. She eyed him warily.
“I reckon there are a few Gaje who've had their share of lice over the years, just like the Gypsies. And your people aren't the only ones who've been known to lie and steal. My people do, too. Hell, this country has built an entire judicial system with judges and jails just to deal with them.” He paused, letting his words sink in. “Okay?”
She nodded slowly. “Okay.”
His thumb stroked her slender nape. “And I reckon, too, that Rebecca Ann hurt you with the things she said and the way she acted with the child and all. On her behalf, I apologize.”
“You do not have to apologize for her,” she said, a little breathlessly.
“Yes, I do.” He released her and tossed the comb into her lap. “Now dry your hair.”
For a long moment, she made no effort to obey. Then, as if her trepidation left her bit by bit, she shifted from her haunches and sat cross-legged beside him.
She ran her fingers through the long tresses, lifting their length from her scalp and fluffing them toward the heat. In the firelight, the strands glinted with red, copper, and gold. As the comb dipped in and out, stroke after stroke, they shone like spun silk and tumbled over her shoulders, framing her head like a halo from heaven.
Reese leaned back against the saddlebags and lit another cigarette. His loins warmed at the mere sight of her, a warming that had nothing to do with the flames in the hearth.
Christ. She was beautiful. How could her people reject her for something her mother had done? How could they think her less than perfect? Why would any Gypsy man not want her for his wife?
Fools. Every one of them.
The Gajo shook out the last remaining quilt and spread it carefully over the tablecloth. A crude preparation, but one that would serve them well enough during the night.
Their bed.
Liza ran a panicky glance over the cabin's shambles, knowing their scant quarters left her little room to lay anywhere but beside him. Dry floor space was limited. Outside the quilt partition, rain pattered through the blown-away roof and soaked the wooden floor. The fireplace provided the much-needed heat the stove failed to give.
She stifled a groan of dismay. The intimacy of sleeping with Reese Carrison threatened to overwhelm her. Never had she dreamed she would share the night with a Gajo, a man who was not her husband, nor ever would be.
How her honor had been tested this night! If Mama were to see her with him like this--her clothes hanging over the quilts, her hair unbound and curling over her shoulders and back--she would be appalled.
And now this.
Sleeping beside Reese Carrison under a quilt barely large enough to cover one body, let alone two, would tear away the last shred of her dignity. How could she face her people?
How could she face Mama?
Mortification churned in her stomach.
The Gajo eased down onto the tablecloth and rubbed his swollen knee. “I’ll give you one of the saddlebags and the side closest to the fire,” he said. “The floor'll be hard as stone, but there's nothing else to lie on.”
“I cannot do this,” she blurted in a hoarse whisper, her arms folding tautly beneath her breasts. “I cannot.”
“What? Sleep with me?” His brow rose, as if the notion had never occurred to him.
Humiliated beyond endurance, her glance fell. “Yes.”
“Reckon that's never been a problem until now.” Amusement laced his tone. “Most women are willing.”
“I do not think that is funny.”
Her terse words chased away his mirth. He sighed heavily and studied the burning tip of his cigarette. After taking a final drag, he flicked the stub into the flames and exhaled slowly, deliberately. “The way I see it, you've got two choices, Liza. You can curl up next to a blazing fire with me right beside you. Or you can leave.” His gaze, cold and steely, found hers. “But if you're planning on helping yourself to that sorrel out back, you'll damn well regret it. I'll come after you hard and fast, if I have to use a lame horse to do it.”
Her chin lifted. His grim warning left no question he would see it through.
“The rest is up to you. Do what you want.” He lifted the quilt and scooted beneath it, pulling the hemmed edges over his broad shoulders. He tucked the saddlebag beneath his head and rolled to his side, his back facing her. “Goodnight.”
She stared at him long after his breathing settled into a deep, even rhythm. He seemed not to give her a second thought. What did he care if she stayed or left? Did it not matter to him that her family had been lost to her this night, that they could be anywhere on the storm-torn Nebraska prairie?
Or that she had no idea where?
The flames hissed and spit in the block, as if to remind her the hour had grown late, that she must sleep, too. She wearily speared a hand through her hair, and, rising, pulling the oilskin closer against the cold, she stepped past the quilt partition and peered outside.
An endless sky shone brazenly where the roof had once been. Thick clouds hid the moon and stars, painting the night as black as pitch tar. Rain fell, as if from a mammoth watering can, and pockmarked the land with countless puddles.
Liza knew she could not leave. Not yet. The drenching she had received earlier still lingered vivid in her mind. She had no desire to go through it all again. But, surely, in a few hours’ time, the clouds would thin and break up. After a little sleep, she would check the sky again.
When the storm ran its course, she would bid good riddance to Reese Carrison, flee the cabin and somehow find her way back to the kumpania .
The vow strengthened her, gave her something to cling to. She slipped behind the quilts once more, to the relative security of the tiny shelter, and shivered. The damp night air had chilled her bare feet, and the wooden floor offered little warmth. Tiptoeing gingerly toward the sideboard, she retrieved her dry chemise and wriggled back into it, glad to have the undergarment next to her skin again.
With the oilskin draped around her shoulders, she returned to the fire. The Gajo had shifted his position; he lay half on the tablecloth, half off, as if to keep as much space between them as possible. Most of the quilt had slid from his long body, gathering in a heap on her side of the makeshift bed.
In the soft, golden firelight, she studied him. A fine sampling of masculinity, this Reese Carrison. A man of his word. A man with honor. For a Gajo, he seemed a man she could trust. She could have done worse by him. Much worse.
He would not touch her tonight. That she could be sure. If he intended to ravage her, would he not have done so long before now? Instead, he had simply rolled over and gone to sleep.
And he had promised.
Her mouth softened. Perhaps she had worried for nothing. In repose, he appeared incapable of all the distasteful things Mama claimed the Gaje were wont to do. Liza sensed this one would be vastly different.
Her hands lifted to the oilskin and pulled it from her shoulders. Carefully, lest she wake him, she laid the coat over his lean length, giving him the warmth that the quilt had denied.
He did not stir. Relieved, she hastened to her side of the tablecloth and slipped beneath the blanket. She lay down, shifting her position so that she faced the fire.
The flames writhed and snapped in the block. Like melted butter, the brilliant red-orange hues drizzled heat over her body, inviting sleep. But it would not come. The blaze held her pensive gaze, throwing her back to a time not so long ago when she had hunkered before the fires of the kumpania surrounded by her family, a passel of yapping dogs, and Rollo, her brother Hanzi's scruffy but charmingly talented dancing bear.
But there would be no fires tonight. Not in the rain. Instead, her people would huddle inside the high-wheeled wagons, all of them warm from their stoked stoves and thick eiderdowns.
Loneliness welled within Liza's breast, and she pressed a fist to her mouth to stifle a sudden sob of despair. She could not let Reese Carrison know of her homesickness. How could he understand when he had no family of his own?
She closed her eyes tight and prayed to God her people were all safe, that they had survived the tornado, and they would not worry about her too much.
For she would be back with them again. Soon.
“Mama? Are you awake?” Paprika's whisper skittered through the wagon's darkness, silent but for the endless pelting rain outside.
“Yes, daughter.” A quavery sigh followed the hushed reply.
Paprika doubted her mother would sleep a minute the entire night.
“Oh, Mama,” she said in sympathy and turned on the cot, searching for her mother's prone form next to Nanosh's. “Liza is very smart. She will not let herself get into any trouble with the Gaje.”
“But how can she not be in trouble with them? She would be here with us if she were not.”
“I know, I know,” Paprika soothed, hoping not to wake Putzi beside her. “Something has happened. I do not know what, but she will come. She promised me.”
“We should not have left without her. What if they keep her in their filthy jails? Or what if she lost her way trying to find us? The storm . . ..” Her voice, heavy with despair, trailed off.
“The tornado was a terrible thing,” Paprika murmured, shuddering from the memory. “We were lucky to miss it.”
When she and Putzi had returned to the camp with the frightening news the Gaje were in pursuit and that Liza had urged them to flee, Nanosh, fearful of arrest, had pulled up stakes in great haste and led the kumpania away from Niobrara City. Then the skies had opened, unleashing their own fury on the land, forbidding Mama to leave behind the vurma Liza needed. The wagons had fled as far as they could, until they could go no longer.
“Lucky?” Mama wailed, heedless of her sleeping family. “What of Liza? How can she have luck when the mulo, the evil spirits, are angry and punish us all with a tornado?”
As if her grief had become too much to bear, her cries grew louder. Nanosh awakened, grunted with thin patience, and rubbed a hand over his swarthy face. “Wife, what is this squalling? Go back to sleep!”
“You leave Liza behind because she is not from your seed!” Mama twisted on her cot and thumped his chest with her fist. Paprika had never seen her so distraught. “But she is mine, Nanosh. And we cannot leave Nebraska without her.”
Reluctant to witness this private exchange between her parents, Paprika held her breath. Until now, she'd only sensed that Liza, Mama's bastard daughter, had always been an unspoken rift between them.
“Mama speaks the truth.” From his own cot near Paprika's, Hanzi's deep voice pierced Mama's tirade. “We will go back for her.”
“The wagon wheels are sunk in the mud to their hubs,” Nanosh said. “We cannot go anywhere until the ground dries enough that we can travel again.”
“Then I will go by foot.”
Paprika's heart surged with pride for her older brother. At seventeen, he was two years younger than Liza, but he had the wisdom and bravery of a man. If anyone could find Liza, Hanzi could.
“I will go with you,” she said.
“You will stay here. You are only a girl.”
Only seconds ago filled with love for him, Paprika sputtered in sisterly outrage. Nanosh hushed their argument with a curt word of command.
“It is settled, then,” he said. “Hanzi will return for Liza as soon as he can. We will follow when we are able.” He glanced down at Mama. “Is that better, wife?”
“Yes.” She sniffed loudly and scrubbed at the tears on her cheeks. “Thank you, Nanosh.”
“Did you really think I would not go after her?” he chided and scooped her up against his chest. His smile, not too often given, showed the glint of his gold tooth. She snuggled against him with familiarity.
“You left so quickly. Without thought to Liza.”
He shrugged. “I was afraid.”
“But not afraid for her?” Mama demanded.
A long moment passed. “She is not of my blood like Paprika or Tekla, it is true. But I did think of her. How could I not? I would have returned for her. When the weather cleared.”
“Only then?”
He made a sound of impatience. “Enough of your nagging, wife. Hanzi will return to Niobrara City. Until then, we will not speak of this again.”
Mama held her tongue and seemed satisfied. Thoughtful, Paprika burrowed deeper into the eiderdown and cuddled Putzi closer.
Her little brother normally slept beside Liza who spoiled him with hugs and kisses until he fell asleep. He'd been devastated when she didn't return and had cried himself into an exhausted sleep.
Paprika kissed the top of his head. Mama and Putzi weren't the only ones who missed Liza with a fierceness deep in their hearts. She did, too.
Her mind turned to Reese Carrison, the handsome Gajo who'd showed great pride in the train at Niobrara City. He'd led the angry Gaje in their chase after Liza, and Paprika sensed he wouldn't be a man Liza could elude easily. Paprika guessed, of all the Gaje, he'd be the one shrewd enough to catch her.
Had Liza fared well with him? Or made her escape? Had she found protection against the storm? Against the Gaje?
Paprika had no answers to the questions spinning inside her head. But she had a feeling, a Gypsy premonition, that wherever Liza was, Reese Carrison was with her
Chapter 6
A delicious warmth shimmered through the depths of Liza's slumber, and she lingered in the lazy netherworld, reluctant to step over the threshold into full wakefulness. A heaviness draped over her waist, and she knew, without looking, that Putzi had crawled into her bed again, as he often did, and laid sprawled beside her, a jumble of little boy arms and legs.
She would not disturb him. Instead, she burrowed deeper into the warmth, closer to the heaviness against her, and waited for sleep to return.
Rain pattered on the wagon's roof. A damp chill had seeped inside, cooling Liza's nose and cheeks. Nanosh must have let the fire in the stove die out, she mused, finding herself more awake than she wanted to be. Perhaps she should rise and stoke it to save him the trouble. After all, the weather would keep the kumpania sleeping in their wagons much later than usual.
Her ear sought his noisy snores. She heard nothing through the sprinkling raindrops, nothing but the slow, steady breathing of someone close beside her.
Her eyes flew open. And she remembered.
Her gaze fastened on the rough-hewn planks of the cabin, the fireplace, the wall of quilts. Reality hit hard, sweeping aside thoughts of a past life and pulling her down to one in the present.
She lay very still beside Reese Carrison. Sometime during the night, he had spread the oilskin over them both, sharing the coat's warmth and that of
his own body with her. She had slept with the bliss of a newborn babe, and her intent to check the storm's progress had faded with the night.
Now, it was long past dawn. And here she lay, nestled like a wife against her husband, no closer to returning to her family than she had been before.
Oddly, the wave of shame she expected did not come. She had survived sleeping with Reese Carrison. Nothing had changed between them. Nothing had changed her. Perhaps it had not been as bad as she thought.
She ventured a peek downward. His long arm rested over her waist and reached past the edge of the oilskin, his fingers curled in a relaxed fist. Thick veins corded his muscular forearm; dark hairs coiled against sun-bronzed skin. The weight of his arm over her was not…unpleasing.
Something inside her melted. She dragged her gaze away and attempted to extricate her bare foot, which had mysteriously found its way tucked against his shin.
He stirred. His arm drew back slowly and then halted, fingers splaying over her belly.
“Still raining?” His voice, husky with sleep, was muffled against the top of her head.
“Yes. Can you not hear it?” The words sounded rushed. She had a sudden urge to comb her hair and wash, to prepare herself for him. She inched away.
“Don't get up,” he mumbled, his hand tightening to keep her near. He had yet to open his eyes. “Too cold.”
“I must.” Like a mouse freed from the trap, she pushed his hand away and skittered from beneath the quilt. Gooseflesh seized her skin, for her thin chemise offered scant covering and even less warmth. She hastened to the woodpile and threw kindling in the block. Soon, the fireplace crackled with flames.
She dressed hurriedly. Fastening the last of her skirts, she remembered the Gaje dollars she had earned selling baskets. Her hand dipped into a pocket and found the wad of bills safe inside. If needed, the money would be invaluable for her return to the kumpania .
Her spirits lightened. The rain would be ending soon; she was a day closer to being back with her family. After breaking her fast, she would check the clouds and hope the sun had broken through so that she could leave.