Wild Dawn

by Cait London

  When he looked at her that way, her stomach tightened and her heart fluttered. “Brawl to your heart’s delight. I’m going to tend Jack. Remember what I said, Mr. Mose. MacGregor has been very ill, so treat him kindly. I shall expect you for supper. We’re having freshly baked bread. MacGregor, please check on my ewes before coming inside.”

  Leaning down to her, MacGregor whispered solemnly, “Yes, ma’am. You think I could have a little good-luck kiss?”

  Mose guffawed, and she blushed.

  “Shoo. You’re embarrassing Mr. Mose.” Then she kissed him quickly before running to the cabin.

  ~**~

  “Tea ain’t so bad, once you figure it out. Slithers down to your gullet. No bite when it hits bottom,” Mose remarked as they sat in front of the evening fire.

  Venus had adopted the rough mountain man, laying her head on his leg to be petted. “Damn fine dog, this skinny bag of bones,” Mose muttered.

  He probed his swollen lip and closed eyelid experimentally. “Tea goes right nice with freshly baked bread and that damn fine jam. Reckon I’d like to spread my robe near this fire, Miss Violet, and turn in for the night.”

  “No need to do that, Mose,” MacGregor said as he changed Jack’s swathing. “We’ve got an extra cot for company. A north snow is coming down.”

  He met Regina’s widened eyes evenly. That “extra” cot had been hers, which meant they would be sleeping together. “May as well be comfortable until it blows over. Won’t hurt you to help Violet and me with the animals in the meantime, will it?”

  “A snug, dry bed,” Mose repeated in a huge yawn and looked longingly at the two cots. “My old bones are needing a rest. Which one? You two use the big one, huh?” he asked, standing and stretching. “Reckon the little one is mine, then.”

  Regina narrowed her eyes warningly. “MacGregor...”

  “Mmm?” he asked, his expression innocent.

  ~**~

  While Mose snorted and coughed, muttering in his sleep and the wind howled beyond the cabin, Regina tried to keep her body from touching MacGregor’s hard length on the small cot. His shirt that she had been using for a nightgown twisted around her thighs. “This is impossible.”

  “Shh.” MacGregor’s lips brushed her temple, startling her.

  “We didn’t need to share a bed. He could have slept on the floor.... You haven’t a stitch on, MacGregor. You could have shown some decency,” she hissed, shifting her hip from the bold nudge of his masculinity.

  “Uh-huh. Mose will spread the word that you’re fighting my reins, and every man-jack in the countryside will come sniffing around here.”

  His fingers rested on her bare thigh, easing up the cotton shirt. Regina brushed his hand aside, groaning when he turned and it rested on her waist.

  She gasped and turned, only to find her breasts nestled against his flat stomach. “Stop squirming,” he ordered in a rasp, fitting her closer against him as his arm slid under her head.

  Forcing inches between them with her hands on his chest, Regina stared up at him through the shadows. “You’re grinning, MacGregor. Pleased with yourself, are you?”

  “Not half as pleased as you could make me,” he whispered unevenly before finding her lips. “Think of the beating I took today, even if you threatened Mose.”

  “Yeow!” Mose’s scream shattered the night, and Regina sat up. Jack began to wail, and MacGregor groaned.

  “Damned moray eels after my other ear like it was vittles!” Mose screamed in terror, and Laddie began to bark. Venus almost leaped upon the bed, before MacGregor stopped her.

  “Damn!” MacGregor slid out of bed and stalked to Jack, picking him up. The baby stopped crying instantly and lay his head against MacGregor’s throat with a last shuddering sigh.

  Standing in the firelight fully aroused and frustrated, MacGregor stared at Regina, who smiled sweetly, trying to keep her eyes above his waist.

  “You invited him to stay,” she whispered before burrowing beneath the blankets. “He’s your friend.”

  “Eels everywhere!”

  Between his teeth, MacGregor muttered, “Some men drink. Other men let women drive them crazy.”

  ~**~

  The third evening of the blizzard, Mose cuddled Jack on his lap and petted Venus with his free hand. “Maybe I’ll be getting me a wife and settling down, MacGregor. Seems like you got everything a man could want here. First winter I seen you without that woolly beard. Look like a half-growed boy.”

  “Uh-huh,” the younger man agreed, glancing meaningfully at Regina, who was mending Mose’s woolen underwear, and then at the cot.

  “Yep. Didn’t like the bath much, but the clean clothes do make a man feel new. Thank you for washing and patching them, Miss Violet.”

  “You’re quite welcome, Mr. Mose. MacGregor and I are very grateful for your help these past days. I’m sure you’ve gathered enough grass to last the sheep until spring. Perhaps you’ll stay with us until the snow melts.”

  “I’ll deal with it. By the way, Miss Violet, look in the bowl under those berries I picked for your jams.”

  “You picked those berries last summer, Mose,” MacGregor interrupted darkly. “Dried and cached them for winter.”

  “MacGregor, the thought is so nice,” Regina said, reaching to delve into the bowl of dried blackberries. “Oh, my!” she exclaimed as she lifted a small leather-wrapped packet. “Is this for me, Mr. Mose?”

  Mose held Jack, who was jumping on his lap, and grinned widely. “A purty for a purty woman, ma’am.”

  MacGregor snorted and continued to sharpen his Bowie on a stone. He spit on the stone and glared at Mose as Regina opened the package to find a string of Indian beads. “Oh, my. How lovely!” she cried, placing them around her neck. “Aren’t they lovely, MacGregor?”

  “Divine,” he muttered, and Mose looked at him sharply.

  Holding MacGregor’s hard stare, Mose said, “If’n I could, I’d get you some fancy fixins’, like a doeskin dress and moccasins with beads. You’d look right purty dancing around the cabin in an outfit like that. Not that you ain’t pretty, ma’am. What with your big purple eyes and long black hair. Got a voice like an angel in heaven, too,” he added for good measure as MacGregor’s lips pressed against each other tightly.

  Regina smoothed the beads along her chest and rose to kiss Mose on the cheek. “Thank you, Mr. Mose. The beads are just lovely.”

  “Lovely,” MacGregor repeated, holding the gleaming blade up to the light.

  “The purple beads matches her eyes,” Mose returned easily. “Mighty nice meal you cooked, Miss Violet. Never ate a bird stuffed with bread before. Was real good. Tell you what...” Mose placed Jack in his willow crib and drew a Jew’s harp from his pocket. Placing it between his lips, he experimented with notes, then began a lively tune.

  Regina clapped when the song ended. “That was marvelous.”

  Mose played another tune and grinned when Regina tapped her toe to the music. “Looks like we got a hoedown coming, MacGregor. Want to dance with your woman while I play?”

  MacGregor glared at him, then threw the Bowie into the cabin’s log. The handle quivered and stilled. “Pressing your luck, aren’t you, Mose?” he asked ominously.

  “Could be,” Mose agreed easily. “Maybe the old goat can teach the young one a thing or two.”

  Regina stared at one man and then the other. “Whatever are you two talking about?”

  “Laughing Dove,” Mose said innocently and roared with laughter when Jack started bouncing and cooing on his lap.

  “Laughing Dove?”

  “Pretty little Injun gal. Wintered with MacGregor some years ago. She got to liking me better than him.”

  MacGregor grimly stared at the older man. “Starting trouble, Mose?”

  “Me?”

  “MacGregor often takes women for the winter, does he?” Regina asked, jabbing her needle into Mose’s torn shirt.

  “Man has to have a woman to keep him warm in winter,
” Mose stated easily while Regina’s soft lips pressed together firmly.

  MacGregor stared at Mose for a long moment. “How would you like to go hunting with me all day tomorrow, Violet? Mose can take care of Jack.”

  “I’d love to!” She turned to Mose. “Oh, do you think you can manage, Mr. Mose? Really, I’ve been plaguing MacGregor to take me hunting some day, and now he’s offered and I really want to go. Would you please take care of Jack?”

  MacGregor smiled at Mose. It wasn’t a nice smile. Rather like one wolf showing his teeth to another.

  ~**~

  MacGregor lifted his face to the freezing wind, the snow stinging his skin. He needed the burning sensation to wipe away the thought of Regina’s creamy breast where Jack had innocently caught the fabric away.

  The sight of the soft, sweet curve had plagued him since dawn. There was something about leaving a sleepy-eyed woman holding his baby that made his heart ache.

  He inhaled the cold air, and it cut through his nostrils. Regina didn’t look like a settled-down married woman. She didn’t hop to please him but turned on him like a spitting cat if he came too close. On the day of their hunt, he’d tried to get close to her, but she’d danced around him, delighted with every new skill.

  Studying the ice clinging to a fallen limb, MacGregor ignored Mose’s curses as he found an empty beaver trap. Regina’s face and body had rounded slightly. Deep in those purple eyes there was a mystery. Whatever it was, it haunted her. What was it?

  Squatting beside him on the stream bank, Mose drew his fur-lined hat lower around his face. He rolled the fresh beaver plew tightly and added it to the ten they had taken that day. “What’s chewing on you, boy?” Mose asked slowly. “Your craw’s been full of something since I came.”

  “About time you moved on, isn’t it, Mose?” MacGregor asked, looking at the low-hanging snow clouds. “Could get caught in this next blizzard. Wouldn’t want to—”

  “Hell, boy. I’m getting to like white bread and tea at your place. Miss Violet knows how to make a man feel welcome.”

  MacGregor’s body tightened. Regina hadn’t made him welcome in their bed. He ached most of the time, her body snuggled to his as she slept. More than once, he’d moved over her only to have her awaken, stiffen and glare at him, her thighs clamped tightly together. “I’ll sleep on the floor, if I have to, MacGregor. And you can explain that to Mose.”

  “You’d do that, would you? To me, your husband?” he’d whispered furiously.

  “Just try me...”

  Mose slanted a look at the younger man. “She’s got you ready for the warpath. Only a woman could do that to you, MacGregor. If’n you’re going to keep this one, you’d better start treating her fine.”

  MacGregor stood suddenly, scanning the low-hanging clouds. “She’s warm and well fed. Those damned sheep of hers get more attention than I do.”

  The older mountain man rose slowly, rubbing a nagging ache in his lower back. “This one is different. You’re going to have to play her game to keep her.”

  “We’re married. She isn’t going anywhere.”

  Mose eased aside a leafless sumac branch and started up the stream bank, following their footprints in the snow. “Then you’d better change your ways, pup. It will take more than Buzzard’s words and an earring to keep a woman like that. Snapping and growling at her heels when you figure she’s done wrong... like hunting on her own... won’t make her want to roll on the bear hide with you. If’n she wants to dance a bit on a cold winter night, won’t strain you none to dance with her.”

  “Damn it, Mose,” MacGregor exploded, tramping after him. “I’m still doing the cooking, except for the bread and those fancy little sweets she makes, like jams. A man has his pride.”

  “Reckon I’d cook for a woman like that,” Mose said simply.

  ~**~

  Lord Mortimer-Hawkes stared at meat sizzling on the inn’s fireplace spit. “Colonials,” he muttered, sipping the rough ale in his pewter mug. “Savages.”

  His gaze locked on a tall black man dressed in woodsman’s clothes. Carrying in wood for the night, the man’s skin glistened in the firelight. His powerful movements caused the Englishman to look away. Once he’d been just as strong—filled with the Mariah’s power. Now he ached in his bones, his flesh flaccid and weak. The inn’s greasy, rough fare rolled in his stomach.

  The wayside inn had taken two days to reach in the snow, and the driver would not go on until the weather cleared. “St. Louie can wait,” he’d stated when Mortimer-Hawkes demanded they continue.

  The Englishman lifted the pewter mug and swilled the ale, which spilled down his frilled shirt. “Soon,” he muttered, lifting his hand to the barmaid for another pitcher of ale. “Soon, my sweet Pagan.”

  Signaling the black man closer, Mortimer-Hawkes inspected his custom-made boots. When the giant loomed over him, the Englishman waved him to sit across from him. Within moments he’d given the man coin to locate Lord Covington’s camp.

  “Pagan, my sweet, sweet daughter,” Mortimer-Hawkes crooned as he watched a droplet of fat sizzle in the flames. “But then, you’re not really of my loins, are you?”

  With that he laughed aloud.

  ~**~

  Regina slipped the horsehair through the hole she’d punched in the leather, fashioning an ear for Mose. Jack played within his pen, built of smooth willows. He cooed at her and waved a chubby fist in the air.

  Would her baby have Jack’s gleaming black hair? Would MacGregor’s baby be a girl this time?

  She wrapped her paisley shawl more tightly around her and ran her palm down her flat stomach. She’d missed her time by a week....

  She would have to move quickly, leaving MacGregor before he knew. He’d want the baby, a part of her, and she couldn’t let him bind her to a life that would make them both miserable.

  “Baby or no, I’ve promised myself freedom. To stand on my own and make my decisions... deciding how to spend the rest of my life. MacGregor’s theory that a man ruleth a weak-minded female isn’t my idea of happiness. I have spent my time in that kingdom. When the time is right, Jack, and when Lord Covington’s tentacles disappear, I’m afraid I shall have to go. I will miss you so, my lad,” she whispered to the baby, who was rocking on all fours and just starting to crawl.

  “I’ve been trying myself on the snow. Watching MacGregor and learning from him. I’ll be ready to start off soon....” She smiled tenderly at the baby. “Jack, when you are older and I am gone, try to understand your father’s ways. He’s been hurt deeply and wants to spare you the pain. He loves you deeply.”

  The leather ear was the same size as Mose’s good one; leather thongs held it to the mountain man’s craggy head.

  At the evening meal Mose beamed, touching his new ear often as he sipped tea from Regina’s china cup. “Right nice. Women will crawl all over me now for sure. My thanks, Miss Violet.”

  When Regina settled Jack for the evening, Mose picked up his Jew’s harp and whanged away a few notes. “MacGregor’s been wanting to ask you to dance, ma’am,” he stated clearly before testing the harp again.

  “Really?” Regina’s eyes widened on MacGregor.

  He glared at Mose, then turned to her and stood slowly. For all his size he looked like a reluctant schoolboy. In a tone of a doomed man, he said slowly, “You’ll have to teach me, Violet.”

  “I’d love to!” she exclaimed while Mose tried a few notes of Greensleeves. “How wonderful, MacGregor. Are you certain?”

  He cleared his throat and stepped nearer. “Show me.”

  For the next hour Regina taught and bubbled with laughter, and looked up at MacGregor with all her happiness shining in her eyes. He grinned down at her, tugging her just a bit closer. “MacGregor, you’re a wonderful dancer. You would cause quite a stir at a ball.”

  “Are you happy?” he whispered, tugging her closer and pressing her tightly against him.

  “Wonderfully happy,” she returned, lifting her arms around
his neck to tug him down for her quick kiss that lingered sweetly.

  She cried in her sleep that night, her tears sliding down MacGregor’s bare shoulder. He stared at the flames and held her closer.

  This new life they had, Jack and he and Violet together, her sheep and the cabin, wasn’t enough. Her torment ran deep and whatever it was, stood like a wall between them.

  ~**~

  The next morning she was gone with his rifle. MacGregor stood looking at her snowshoe tracks, which led off to the mountain pass. Jack fretted in his father’s arms, his fat cheeks warm. MacGregor kissed his son’s hair. “She’ll come back and you can snuggle into a softer chest than mine, boy,” he whispered. “Reckon she smells a lot better than me, too... like cinnamon,” he added softly.

  Rocking his son while he stood, MacGregor frowned and tried to understand her tears. Delighted when they danced, Regina had spent a restless night snuggling close to him. When Mose started screaming about eels feasting on his ear, she’d whispered urgently, “Hold me, MacGregor. Hold me tight.”

  Was that because she knew she was leaving in the morning? Had she left him?

  MacGregor cuddled his son closer and scanned the wilderness. She could be lying somewhere now, torn and bleeding from a puma attack, or she could be dying, or raped... “Blasted woman. Why couldn’t she stay here, where she’s safe? Why can’t she stop wanting?”

  MacGregor remembered her tears, how she’d cuddled close. Only the wounded shivered like that, and he wasn’t about to take advantage when she was hurting and scared.

  By late afternoon Jack was flushed with fever and wouldn’t be quieted. Mose jumped and wrung his hands when the baby cried, leaving the cabin to tend the sheep often. MacGregor cooled the baby’s chubby body with a damp cloth and stared at the door, willing Regina to step through it. “I’ll paddle that soft backside of hers for running off, Jack.”

  The moon skimmed across the snow, and within the cabin Jack wailed in pain, drawing his tiny body in a curve. Walking the floor with his son, MacGregor was frightened for Jack and the woman who had not returned. He wanted her safe, wanted to hold her close and feel her softness in his arms. Wanted to hear her speak in that soft, lilting tone.