by Jillian Hart
They moved together and the beauty of it overwhelmed her. Pleasure gathered and built, twisting her tightly around him. He moved within her, and she rose against him. Every muscle tensed and she clung to his shoulders. Heat streaked down her limbs and vibrated in every muscle. Her entire body was tightening around him. Pleasure felt like pain and she couldn’t endure any more. Relentless, Night Hawk rocked against her, stroking her deeply. Then she shattered into a thousand pieces.
He cried out, his body stiffened, and she held him as he came. She kissed his face and wrapped her ankles around his hips, feeling him pulse deep within her. She climaxed again, a sudden ripple of pleasure that left her clinging to him.
Night Hawk’s kiss was infinitely gentle. He brushed the hair from her face with heartrending tenderness.
“Don’t leave me.” She kissed him, holding him to her with her arms and thighs, feeling his heavy shaft within her swell and stiffen again.
His kiss became a smile. He loved her slowly, as if the day would never end. Thoroughly, as if night would never come.
From this moment on, whether together or separated, he would always be a part of her.
“It’s nearly dusk.” He kissed the crown of her head and breathed in her silken scent. “Time to get you back home before your father misses you.”
“You had to mention him, didn’t you?”
“He stands between us. You can’t deny it.” Sadness filled him. “I’m no army major.”
“I told you that’s not what I want.” She kissed him passionately enough to make him wish he could lay her back down in the grass and love her all over again.
But she stood and smoothed her wrinkled skirts.
“I’ll walk you.” He climbed reluctantly to his feet and whistled for Kammeo.
At the far side of the meadow, the mare swung her head up, whinnied, then loped toward them.
The shadows from the sinking sun fell cool and long across the earth. He couldn’t strong-arm the sun back up into the sky. He couldn’t stop this treasured moment from slipping away.
Now there were consequences to face.
“I want to come visit you tomorrow.” She allowed him to boost her onto the mare’s back. “Right here. In this meadow. I want to make love to you again.”
“You think that’s wise?”
“Absolutely.” Her smile chased away all the darkness from his heart. “I can’t wait.”
The world stood between them. She was too young to believe that, too optimistic to see that this choice they’d made had only one outcome. Even if he wished otherwise.
He mounted behind her and cradled her against him. She relaxed against his chest, sated and happy. They shared kisses as he guided the mare down the trail and toward the woods.
“I don’t want you to speak to anyone about this,” he told her when the trail narrowed and the fort lay just ahead. “Not even your father.”
“I’m not ashamed of loving you.”
He kissed her hard, loving her more. “I want you to think this over. We were impulsive in the meadow. I should have been in control. I should have made sure we didn’t go too far.”
“But I wanted—”
“I know.” He silenced her with one last kiss. “But there are consequences. Your father is right. You have your reputation to consider. As his daughter. As a schoolteacher. And as a white woman.”
“Night Hawk.” Her hand caressed the side of his face, reassuring and devoted. “I’ll do as you ask, but I already know what I want. My heart’s desire is you.”
“I love you, Marie.” He wished otherwise. He wished he’d behaved more honorably. He had no right to take her virginity. No right to take what rightfully belonged to another man.
Yet part of him hoped. And wished.
“Good night, my shaylee.” He slipped to the ground, hating this parting. Hating that by tomorrow, she might see him differently. Might look at him with regret.
“That means ‘brightest star in the heavens,’” he told her.
When she left, she took his heart with her.
“You seemed distracted during supper.” Henry hesitated in the hallway just outside Marie’s room. “I thought you’d enjoy seeing Mrs. Webster again. Her husband is one of my best trackers.”
“I have a lot on my mind, Papa.” Marie closed her reading primer. “I have exams tomorrow. The first of the term.”
“School seems to be going well. All the parents I’ve spoken to are pleased.” He remained in the shadows, just outside the throw of lamplight. “You do me proud, daughter.”
Proud was a start. “I’m glad, Papa.” She pushed away from her desk. “I’m happy with the school. Coming here has been the best decision of my life.”
“I’m glad you see things that way.” A small smile broke through Henry’s constant reserve, barely visible beneath his mustache. “I know it’s been strained between us. I can’t help but feel it’s because I chose the career I did instead of staying in Ohio after your mother died and raising you.”
If it was an apology, it was a start. “My only regret is that you didn’t take me with you. I know—” she held up her hand before he could start his usual explanations “—the wilderness is dangerous. The frontier is no place for a child. You wanted me raised in my aunt’s home.”
“And you’re the better for it.” Henry looked sad. He looked defensive. He looked weary. “You are a real lady, Marie. The kind any well-bred gentleman would be proud to make his wife.”
“Does it always have to come down to marriage?” She tried to control her anger, because it covered a greater fear and a deeper pain—the little girl inside her needed her father’s love and feared she would never be good enough for it. “I might want something different.”
“Spinsterhood?” He raked one hand through his thinning hair. “I want to sleep at night knowing my daughter is safely married. Before I die, I want to hold my grandson in my arms.”
“That will happen.” Remembering Night Hawk’s words, she kept their secret. “But I need to choose for myself.”
“Now Marie, what does a girl your age know about making a good marriage?”
“Maybe more than you think.”
“I know what you want. Love. Isn’t that what you’re waiting for?” He shook his head wearily. “Love doesn’t last. Marriage needs to be built on a more solid foundation.”
Sorrow filled her. “What kind of love doesn’t last? Romantic love? A father’s love? All kinds of love?”
“You confuse the issue on purpose, Marie. I’m talking about duty. About united purpose. Working together to achieve goals.”
“That’s how you run your fort, Papa, and you do a marvelous job. You have the respect of everyone I know. But there is more to life than duty and discipline.”
He stared at her as if he couldn’t imagine what. “At times it’s hard to believe that you’re my daughter at all. You have too much of your mother in you.”
“How can you talk about her that way? I loved her. And I love you, although heaven knows it isn’t easy.” Anger shivered in her voice, and she hated that she couldn’t control it. But her heart hurt too much over her mother’s memory.
Duty, indeed. Bitterness filled her and she turned her back on Henry. Long painful minutes ticked by, measured by the small clock on her mantel. Then his step shuffled down the hall, slow and hesitant and almost dragging.
Was that how she was created? Not from a love so great, but from a sense of duty? A cold union without passion or beauty?
Tears burned. Not tears for herself, but for all her father would never know. What he’d missed. And how he’d failed her and her mother.
Wiping her eyes, she collapsed on the window seat. She grabbed the decorated pillow and hugged it tight. Through the crack in the curtains she could see a scattering of stars in a deep black sky.
Shaylee, Night Hawk had called her. The brightest star. She closed her eyes, treasuring the memory of making love with him. Of lying beneath him. Of t
he beauty of their tender union.
Their child would be conceived in love. As all children should be.
She longed for Night Hawk as she watched the sky. Waited while the disk of the moon traveled away from her window. Ached to hold him. Hungered for him.
Just as she would for the rest of her life.
Chapter Nine
“We cannot stay long,” Spring Rain explained as she halted her pony. “Morning Star insisted on seeing your wounded hawk.”
“Night Hawk!” Morning Star hopped from her pony and hit the ground running, twin braids flying behind her as she raced toward the stable. “Is he eating yet?”
“A little,” Night Hawk called after her. “I left some smoked fish by his nest.”
She was already out of hearing.
“Come, I have hot coffee.” Night Hawk held out his hand, and Spring Rain, her sixth pregnancy beginning to show, accepted his help as she dismounted her pony. “I have sugar, too.”
“You know my weakness.” Spring Rain rubbed her back as she climbed the front steps. “Running Deer forbids such things. He clings to the past fiercely.”
“We all do.” Night Hawk took Spring Rain’s elbow and led her to his most comfortable chair. “Put your feet up and rest. You look tired, sister.”
“There is always so much to do. And Running Deer—”
Night Hawk didn’t like the man who’d married his brother’s wife, but it wasn’t his place to say so. “What can I do?”
“You do too much for us.” Spring Rain settled into the chair with a sigh. One that spoke of a deep weariness. “Great-Grandfather has sent a message from the western mountains where our clan has settled.”
“What did our great-grandfather ask?”
“For us to join him. He’s never seen my sons. He wishes Morning Star to be raised in the ways of our people.” Spring Rain covered her small belly with both hands. “Running Deer is considering. If he decides, then we will leave now while the weather is fair.”
Hundreds of emotions churned within him, and Night Hawk stalked away to the kitchen. He wished the solutions could be simple ones.
He filled a cup with steaming coffee and looked over his shoulder at his sister-in-law. The woman was too thin and dark circles haunted her eyes. Her smile was genuine as she accepted the cup he offered.
“Oh, you put in lots of sugar.” Her eyes glittered with this small happiness. “If we move to the place of great mountains and rivers, I will miss your coffee. Unless you come with us.”
“You know I won’t leave this land.” Night Hawk said it as gently as he could.
“I know.” Sadness chased away the brief glitter in her eyes, and she sipped the brew deeply. “There is another matter we must speak of. The colonel’s daughter.”
Shame filled him. Joy filled him. Images of loving Marie flashed through his mind. Of her eager touch. Her head thrown back in ecstasy. The trust in her gaze as he entered her.
Torn, he paced to the window. “What do you know about me and Marie?”
“I saw you bringing her home last night. I saw you kissing.”
What if someone else had seen them? The meadow was a private one and he owned it, but that wasn’t the only problem. He’d taken her virginity. He could have gotten her with child. What of her reputation? What about her father? There were great consequences he wanted to shelter Marie from.
He’d wrestled with little else all night long. He loved Marie with all his heart. All his soul. How could he ever be ashamed of that?
But he was a man of steel control. And he’d let his passion rule. He didn’t need Spring Rain to tell him he had no right to love the colonel’s daughter.
“Did you tell Running Deer?” he asked carefully.
“No.” Sorrow drew harsh lines in her pretty face as she shifted in the chair. “I don’t wish you harm, brother. Times have changed since Henry Lafayette came to the fort. Life has been better for all of us. He’s a decent man. But how far can you trust him? He won’t want an Indian for a son-in-law.”
“I can’t argue that.”
“If you love her, you’ll be the one hurt.” Spring Rain stood, balancing her weight and the nearly full cup, and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Dissolve your relationship with Marie. She is a kind woman, but she doesn’t understand.”
“I keep hoping—” He did not finish his thoughts. Maybe it was too risky to put his greatest wish into words.
“You are lonely. Get yourself a wife, Night Hawk. Someone like us. There are other tribes nearby. Surely they have a pretty but dim-witted woman who would not mind being married to the likes of you.”
Now she teased, and it hurt—her concern and her truth.
She padded toward the door. “I will not be long.”
He knew where she was going—to his brother’s grave. To the graveyard deep in the untouched forest at the far edge of his land. Where his family was buried.
Spring Rain was right. Loneliness had become a hunger inside him. But that wasn’t the reason he’d been swept away by the gentle beauty of Marie’s love.
More images assailed him. The honeyed taste of her skin. The moan she made low in her throat of surrender and hunger when he caressed her breasts. The way she brought laughter to his life. No woman had ever made him feel like this. No other woman ever could.
But the question remained, one that ate at his conscience. Did he have the right to wish? Was there a way he and Marie could be together as man and wife?
“Look! The hawk eats from my hand,” Morning Star told him the instant he stepped inside the stable. “He’s still very weak.”
“The bullet went through his wing and into his body.” Night Hawk joined his niece at the table where the bird cocked his head to study the newcomer. “He still may not live.”
“Oh, I want him to live. He likes me.” Morning Star smiled.
In her face Night Hawk saw the faces of the children he wanted.
Children he wished for from the woman he loved.
“Night Hawk.” Marie couldn’t believe her eyes. The stylus tumbled from her fingers and plummeted off the desk. It really was him standing just inside the schoolhouse vestibule. “How did you know I was daydreaming about you?”
“Lucky guess.”
Two little girls, the last of the students, scurried past him, chattering about their plans to visit the mercantile for penny candy.
Night Hawk closed the door after them.
How good he looked. From his dark hair tied back at his nape all the way to his leather moccasins, she loved everything about him. Everything.
Memories exploded through her, hot and forbidden.
“What are you doing in town?” She pushed back from her desk and retrieved her stylus from the floor where it had rolled. “I figured we might meet at the meadow.”
“The meadow? And just what did you think we’d do there?”
“Oh, talk. Skip stones on the water.” Three steps and she was in his arms. Cradled against his strong chest. “I dreamed about you all night. I wanted to be with you.”
On a tortured groan, his mouth slanted over hers. Yes. She wanted this, too. Desire built with every tender-rough stroke of his tongue and every brush of his lips to hers. Claiming. Demanding. Heaven could not be better than this.
“All night I wanted you,” he confessed against her lips. “Just you.”
How incredible to hear him say those words. She wrapped her hand around his back, delighting in the hard luxury of him. “Take me home with you. I need to make love with you.”
“No, Marie.” He pulled away, and his face twisted as if in agony. “Not until we talk.”
“There’s no need.” She let her fingertips dance along the back of his neck. “I don’t have to think anything over, like you’ve asked me to. I’m absolutely certain about wanting you.”
“Do you know what you’re risking?”
“There’s no risk. Not if you feel the same way.”
“You know I do.”
Desire beat in his blood, and he was already hard. He wanted to love her. To lose himself in her over and over again until all these doubts vanished.
He could not relinquish the hard-won control he’d neglected yesterday. He pulled out the chair in front of her desk and held it, gesturing for her to sit. “We have to discuss what happens next, Marie. You are old enough to know there are consequences to what we shared.”
“I know.”
“It’s not too late to change your mind.” It killed him to say the words, but she deserved to hear them. “We can stop right now before this goes any further. Any man who truly loves you is going to understand one lapse of judgment. He’ll forgive you.”
“You’re not listening to me, Night Hawk.”
“I want you to consider carefully.” Everything about him was tense—his face, his shoulders, his hands. “Your father will disapprove. I don’t want you to be hurt. If you pledge your life to me, then it could bring you much heartache—”
He bowed his head as if he could not finish.
“Loving you could never bring me heartache.” She pressed a kiss to the side of his face. “As long as you want me.”
“No, shaylee. Making love with you was the greatest moment of my life.” He knelt before her and took her hand.
A sense of rightness filled her. “Then we have no problems. And as for my father, Papa prides himself on his broad-mindedness. He’s not a prejudiced man.”
“Yes, but you are his daughter. The young woman he hopes will make an advantageous marriage to one of his majors.”
“Then he will learn to accept you.” Marie’s chin lifted, as if ready to fight the world to defend their love.
How he loved her for it. “We must tell him. Now.”
“This very moment?”
“Unless you hold secret hopes for Major Gerard.”
“Very funny.”
“This is important to me.” Night Hawk stood, taking her hand in his. “You could be carrying my child, and I won’t have either of you shamed.”
She came into his arms as if she belonged there and intended to stay forever. “No one has ever cared the way you do.”