by Cait London
“There now, my fine lad,” Regina soothed, petting the dog. “MacGregor is in a temper this morning. But we’re not going to let that stop our lovely play, are we?”
“Lovely,” MacGregor repeated, wondering how many times she had used the word that morning. “We could get scalped or shot in the backside at any moment, and you think it’s lovely?”
“Lovely,” she returned, grinning up at him. “There now, Laddie. MacGregor may growl a bit, but he’s a friend.”
MacGregor glanced back at the burning camp, then at the goat leading the sheep deeper into the pass. The dog growled at Regina’s side until she pointed toward the flock of sheep. “Go.”
“We can’t take those sheep through the pass.”
She began walking quickly after the small flock, moving easily across the rocky trail. “Come on, MacGregor. It’s a lovely morning for an adventure. Lady Guinevere is a wonderful lead goat. My sheep follow her without question. They’re a Highland Scots cross, perfect for the mountains and lovely for wool. Fine mutton, too. But these darlings aren’t intended for cooking pots.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, shifting the saddle on his back. Veering off the trail, he found the horses. After swinging up into Kansas’s saddle, he tied Regina’s saddle to the horn.
Slapping his coiled rope against the horses, he urged them toward the mountain pass. Overtaking the flock, the horses circled them and slid into the first bend marking the pass.
Overhead a red-tailed hawk soared higher into the pink dawn, his shrill call cutting into the morning. A grayish-brown chipmunk ran up the side of a yellow pine to hide in the thick needles.
Patches of snow clung to the shadows, and Regina stepped through them as daintily as a lady on a London stroll. MacGregor found himself tracking Regina’s slim backside as it swayed gently in boy’s trousers. He wished that sweet curve were tucked neatly against him in the furs. He never wanted a woman clinging to him, never wanted her breath to swirl in his ear and hear those soft uneven sighs against his skin....
Walking Kansas beside her, he blinked at her wide, saucy smile. The shouts behind them grew weaker as he studied the woman he’d set out to claim as his wife.
Her breath sent up a small cloud of steam in the cold air. The dog nipped and herded the sheep, keeping them in a close pattern moving through the rocky, curving pass. She ran back to her mistress frequently, acting like a frisky pup at her heels. Regina talked to the white-eyed dog, patting and slipping her a piece of jerky.
“There now, my laddie,” she cooed. “They left you to tend the flock all alone, didn’t they? Venus is waiting with Pierre and a baby, too.”
She bent to feed the dog MacGregor’s sourdough biscuit, and the pack on her back slipped.
“I’ll take that,” MacGregor said quietly. Less than an hour ago this woman’s kiss ignited a fire in his belly, and now she looked like a girl, grinning up at him.
In the first sharp light after they passed a shadowy bend, Regina’s thick, gleaming braid swung free to brush her hips. She lifted the pack to him carefully and smiled up at him. “My books .... poetry and a wonderful book by a colonist woman, Mrs. Child.”
He lifted the pack, inspecting the intricate designs of the bright indigos, reds, and purples of the soft cloth and the clinging fringe.
Running her fingers lovingly across the cloth, she said, “My paisley shawl. Quite in fashion when worn with a plaid dress. The pattern came to Scotland from India by way of the trade routes. See the intricate patterns? There are legends about it. One says that it’s a caliph’s fist print, his signature. Another says it’s a flame. Mine is of fine wool from the undercoat of ten cashmere goats, though there are muslin and gorgeous bright saffron-colored shawls. Don’t you love the tiny flowers inside the flames? The design is called buta, meaning ‘flower.’”
Regina grinned up at him wickedly. “Napoleon gave Josephine an Egyptian paisley shawl, and she ordered hundreds more. I’ve always thought the shawls to be rather... seductive.”
Glass clinked softly within the bundle as he tied it to his saddle horn, and Regina bent to pick up a long stick. “Please be careful, MacGregor. That’s fine English brandy and Scots whiskey in my shawl.”
He eased the pack open enough to lift free the bottles and tuck them carefully into his saddlebags. Shifting in the saddle, he stared at the sheep moving higher on the mountain pass.
This morning Regina had come after him, touching his arousal and asking for his mouth on her skin. She’d called him her “dark knight” and marked him with her purple ribbon before the raid in which he’d killed Jack Ryker.
Then here he was stroking her shawl and watching her hips sway as they herded sheep and horses across a dangerous pass. In the midst of it all, she’d taken a name he’d given her, Violet. MacGregor shifted uneasily in the saddle. He wanted her near, her arms and bosom soft against him.... “You can ride behind me.”
She grinned widely, stunning him. “Wouldn’t think of it. But perhaps you’d better check on the horses. They’re probably needing a tending hand while Laddie is doing all my work. He’s a fine one, isn’t he? A ship brought his mother to the docks and I found her amid the fish, begging for scraps.”
“The dog is a female,” MacGregor stated quietly as he turned to watch smoke rise into the morning sky behind them. He ground his teeth, aching for the touch of her.
“Oh, I know. But they wouldn’t have let her come if they’d known, and I’ve gotten into the habit of calling her a ‘him’. You see, I’ve been planning this trip a long time, and chose Laddie even before she was born to be my accomplice. Lovely when plans are successful, isn’t it?”
MacGregor urged the big Appaloosa ahead slightly. He didn’t want to explore the way the dog’s scent could have caused every male dog in the country to follow them. He glanced away at a beaver dam, studying the thick fur of a big male with the eye of an experienced trapper.
Women of quality shouldn’t know the particulars of breeding. But she did... “You’ll get tired. Wave when you do.”
“Why, MacGregor. I believe you’re blushing!” she exclaimed, studying him intently.
“Hell and damnation, woman. A man needs his privacy,” he began hotly, as glimpses of her white breast in the dawn went scooting through him unbidden.
“Women, too,” she said quietly, glancing down at the rising smoke in the shadowed valley. “Will they follow?”
“Not likely this morning. From what I saw, they’ll have to sleep off their whiskey first. Without Ryker, they’ll have to sit it out for a while.”
Her brows went up. “Without Ryker?”
“Killed him. He had a rifle pointed at that swinging rump of yours. Since I’d just kissed those strawberry breasts and you’d run your hands down my privates, I reckoned Ryker better not nick anything I wanted to play with.”
“You killed Jack Ryker? Was that necessary?”
“You’re alive, aren’t you? Swaying your hips and strawberry breasts, enough to pull a man’s eyeballs from his head.” He’d taunted her, not wanting her to pursue how many men he’d killed along his lifetime.
“MacGregor! Swaying hips, indeed.” Flushing wildly, she stared at him, her mouth parted. “Strawberry... I did not fondle your....” She swallowed and blinked several times as if she were also remembering. “You know....”
“Yes, ma’am. I truly do. It was lovely having you hot and wanting me. Can’t say as I’ve ever had a woman come at me like that. Truly. It was divine. Simply lovely.”
“MacGregor!”
He admired the soft way she turned away, embarrassed. A man didn’t want to think his woman had talked or rolled with another man, and Regina reacted just the way he wanted—new to the game.
Patting Kansas’s mottled neck, MacGregor sat back in the saddle. “Feels mighty fine, boy... having a woman get hot and skittery when you’re wanting her.”
When Regina hadn’t turned his way in an hour, he slid his fingers along the soft shawl and toyed with
the fringe.
“Women,” he tossed at the horses, who began following him. He glanced over his shoulder to Regina and found her playing with the dog. “Riding point for horses and sheep. Carrying a woman’s shawl and waiting to bed her like a half-starved boy.”
He tucked up his collar against the winds sweeping down the ravines and settled into the saddle to doze.
~**~
The moon rose slowly over the Sangre de Cristos, lighting the small meadow where they had stopped for the night. The sheep had slowed crossing the pass, and once the goat had turned on MacGregor, charging at him.
Hercules, the ram, looked on with mild interest. Finally accepting his fate, MacGregor slid the entourage into a deep red rock ravine with lush grazing grass, tucked away from the mountain wind and fed by a stream.
Though the sky was blue overhead, the small meadow lay in shadows. A mountain cat screamed distantly in the night, and the horses, tied loosely to a rope strung between pines, whinnied uneasily. In a nook against the red rock cliff the sheep grazed peacefully. Laddie lay on a fallen pine log and sniffed the damp, earth-scented air frequently.
MacGregor snared two rabbits, roasting them on green wood spits propped over the small campfire. A small light skillet caught the meat drippings; camp coffee seeped in a tin bucket near the fire.
“This is marvelous,” Regina called. She propped the last of the branches she had cut against one side of the stripling MacGregor had tied to the ground. Placing her hands on her waist, she grinned across the shelter at him. “I am famished.”
Crouched by the fire, MacGregor tossed a handful of cornmeal into the browned drippings and added water, stirring it into a gravy.
Looking more like a boy than a woman, Regina should be tired, but he’d seen her thriving energy before, fed by excitement. Once the warm food hit her stomach, she’d curl into the sleeping robe like an exhausted child. Thrilled by their success, her face was flushed by the campfire as she settled at his side.
Leaning back against the red morocco leather, Regina looked at the stars over them and stretched her arms high. “Wonderful country. Beautiful and clean. This morning was positively exhilarating.”
She giggled, patting him on the thigh. “You should have seen the earl’s face. Lying there with his doxy, drunk as a loon, unable to do anything but watch while I tied him to a tent pole.”
At that MacGregor placed the skillet on a flat rock and stared at her. “You what?”
Her eyes widened indignantly. “There you go with that positively black look as though I’ve misbehaved.”
She straightened, ran her hand across her forehead to smooth the curling tendrils back, and lifted her chin. “I had to let him know who was counting coup on him.”
“He knows you’re alive now,” MacGregor stated slowly. “He’ll be coming for you. Before he might have thought it was Indians.”
Regina’s eyes leveled at him, light within their dark lashes. “I wanted him to know. It was a point of honor. He’d treated Venus badly and left Laddie and my poor little lambs to fend for themselves.”
MacGregor lifted his eyebrow. “You weren’t exactly sweet-talked into leaving camp.”
She frowned and looked away at the sheep settling down on the thick, dry grass. “No. I understood we were going to study a nearby flock of Navaho sheep and camp for a few days while I talked with the shepherd. My dream and the purpose of these sheep are to provide a new life away from England....”
The sound of the creek rippling by the camp mingled with the animals’ sounds before she turned to him. Her small hand rested on his thigh, and MacGregor found himself thinking of her breasts instantly, the soft flesh beneath his lips....
“I am so glad you stole the horses, MacGregor,” she whispered urgently. “I couldn’t bear to leave them behind. We could use them for trade with the Indians as we go. I hear the natives treat their stock well.”
“Unless they eat them for winter meat. You could have been hurt.”
MacGregor didn’t want to think of the ways she could have been hurt. He handed her a roast rabbit haunch. “You wouldn’t last long as a camp whore.”
Biting into the meat, Regina scowled at him. Around the clump of meat, she said, “I wish you wouldn’t use words like that.”
She licked her fingers daintily and asked, “I’ve been thinking, MacGregor. Where are these dangerous savages, the scoundrels that Moon mentioned? And why are we safe? And what did he mean, ‘walking twixt the nations’? By the way, I’ve caught two lovely trout in the stream, and they’ll keep there until breakfast. I want to do my part, MacGregor.”
She tossed Laddie the remainder of the rabbit and wiped her hands on her trousers. She scanned the gravy, sampling it with the tip of her finger, and smiling at him as he waited for her to finish. “Well, are you too tired to talk? Shall I tuck you in and sing a lullaby?”
“I’m waiting for a chance to answer.”
“Thank you for today, MacGregor,” she said softly. “For keeping the bargain, despite the danger.”
“Uh-huh.” On an impulse MacGregor dipped her finger in the gravy again and licked it from her, his eyes locking with hers.
“My....” She sighed unevenly, then cleared her throat. “What else have you cooked?”
~**~
Chapter Eight
Laddie barked savagely just as Regina finished dipping the last sourdough biscuit into the gravy.
The band of Indians moved from the night like shadows into the camp, surrounding them.
Draped in furs, blankets, and feathers, Little Bird’s warriors consisted of Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, and a Sioux bearing the mark of Red Cloud’s band. The large gold cross covering Little Bird’s beaded breastplate shone in the firelight, a fresh scalp of blond hair tied to his lance glistened.
He raised his hand to salute MacGregor and spoke in English. “Two Hearts. Today you raided the whites and gave our Cheyenne brother many horses. Your red heart remembers your brother, the Cheyenne, murdered in their peace camp at Sand Creek by the white soldiers.”
“I remember and pray that the peace treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek will ease the hearts of the Cheyenne and Arapaho.”
“Pah! Black Kettle signs the white treaty, agreeing to one small patch of ground—a reservation.” The word bitter in his mouth, Little Bird’s broad mouth turned down.
MacGregor studied the warriors and the red paint marking their faces. These men, cradling their rifles as they hugged hatred to their hearts, would not bend to any treaty. Yet these men were friends of MacGregor’s youth, and he ached with them.
“I saw you, my friends, watching the camp. I have waited for you to share my humble fire,” MacGregor answered, returning Little Bird’s salute. Regina stood at his side, her face pale.
The fierce men towered over her, their hearts filled with grief and murder. Men who had been tortured and whipped, fighting desperately for their lands against Spanish, French, and the floods of soldiers, miners, settlers.
Several inches shorter than the men, Regina met their stony looks with her own. Steel ran through the blood of both races, and each Indian appreciated the proud lift of her head.
Pride rippled through MacGregor; his woman stood beside him unafraid. Studying the five Indians who moved close to her, she looked back at them evenly. One touched her skin and the rippling braid, tangling his finger in the curling ends. Curious, another toyed with her ruby eardrops.
“You understand the wind and the deer, running free,” Little Bird stated quietly. “For this we call you brother and allow you to pass in peace, though there is blood flowing along the Purgatory and the Taos Trail and many who do not mark their brothers.”
Dressed in a blue uniform jacket, leather leggings, and a loincloth, the Indian chief turned to Regina. “Your woman can run like the wind.”
Little Bird’s eyes flicked down Regina, and for a moment the cruel lines around his mouth softened. “This is the one you have claimed from the mountain and the
whites. She is narrow like a boy. Surely she cannot be soft beneath the furs. You may have to take another wife to get sons to play with Jack.”
Beside MacGregor, Regina’s blush deepened in the firelight, and she stiffened. “Mr. MacGregor and I have a business arrangement,” she began hotly, then stopped when she glanced up to see him smiling.
“Whiskey?” Manti, a Cheyenne, asked in a low, guttural tone.
“No whiskey. That is not for us,” Little Bird stated harshly, scowling at Manti.
When the warrior looked away, Little Bird nodded and turned to MacGregor. “Has your heart chosen its people, my old friend? Will your son of two bloods be thrown into a white man’s school, alone and afraid as you?”
MacGregor placed his hand over his heart. “I take my son to the high country, to safety. My woman, too.”
Little Bird touched Regina’s braid as it crossed her breast. “My brother, the woman is not weak. She is a prize to warm the poorest man. Many will fight to have her, whites and red blood alike. You may pass freely, you and your brothers, because you take only what you need. Others who kill the buffalo and the deer and leave them to rot will meet another fate.”
At his side Regina shivered slightly, and MacGregor found his hand seeking her small one. Little Bird glanced at their joined hands, then at MacGregor.
“Once as a child you fought the priest and took his lash to set me free, my brother.” He touched his chest and then MacGregor’s. “We found our visions in the Sun Dance together.... Of two bloods, you may pass safely. Your woman, too. You take your son to safety. This I understand.”
Little Bird’s broad lips curved into a small smile as he glanced down at Regina, who barely reached to MacGregor’s shoulder. “She is scrawny, my brother. Perhaps you would need warmer meat in your blankets. A fat woman is good in the cold winter.”
“Now, see here—” Regina began hotly before MacGregor tucked her against his side, his hand resting low on her hip.
“A poor man takes what he can,” he said quietly as a flush rose in her cheeks. Patting her soft buttocks, MacGregor nodded toward the sheep. “Your flock needs tending, my dear,” he said quietly, pressing his hand against the small of her back to urge her toward the sheep.