Tallchief for Keeps

by London, Cait

  Alek smiled in the dim light. “Someday, you’ll have to tell me when the images come and share them with me. From your expression, I’d say it was a good one.”

  “A very good one.”

  She could have throttled Alek, a pushy man set on a quick wedding. “What? You would ask me, a Petrovna, to wait months?”

  She hadn’t asked; she’d told him. So much for a logical discussion in the Bridal Tepee the next morning. After a night of making love, dozing and making love again, Elspeth had awakened to Alek packing his gear. He’d bundled her off to the farmhouse and immediately started making telephone calls to arrange their wedding.

  No amount of arguing could stop him, but Elspeth dived into the flaming arguments, delighting in them, in the passion flaring in Alek’s eyes when she did. Oh, she’d meet him on a level he understood and not on any nice, polite, shadowy, wishy-washy level, either.

  She’d chosen to stand and fight, and Alek would have to reap what he had sown….

  Now, a full week later—that was all the time he gave her to prepare everything for a horde of relatives and friends, including the Petrovnas’ Texas relations—Elspeth rode Delight down Amen Flats’s Main Street. Ribbons and flowers decked the horse, and she pranced, showing off. Leading the horse, Emily—Sybil’s daughter—would one day find her love.

  Her hair loose and flowing around her, Elspeth wore LaBelle’s diamond stud earrings; Elizabeth’s long, lacy veil, topped with a tiny braided coronet from Elizabeth’s mother, fluttered in the fall air. Elspeth wore the garter her mother had given her years ago, decked with ribbons. On the lace high on her throat, Elspeth wore her mother’s favorite cameo; as a judge, Pauline had sentenced Matthew to jail wearing that cameo. A long-legged, tough Tallchief, Matthew had burst into her courtroom and called her a hard-hearted, evil woman who made him love her. Pauline had him hauled off to jail when she ordered quiet and Matthew had continued “contempt of court.” Later, in his jail cell, she’d admitted her love for him, and the cameo had always remained precious to her. Una’s shawl fluttered from the saddle horn, a fiery blaze amid the yards of pristine bridal gown.

  Elspeth smoothed the gown, remembering how Talia, Sybil, Mrs. Petrovna, Lacey and a revolving sea of loving hands had fashioned the gown.

  At the end of the street, waiting with a crowd of people she loved, waited her husband-to-be, dressed in a Tallchief kilt.

  She wasn’t happy. Alek had pushed and shoved, and if she hadn’t wanted the same so much and as soon, she would have pushed back so hard she’d get that swoon out of him yet.

  Alek had insisted she wear a long bridal gown and veil. She knew he still thought of how he’d taken her years ago, and it was a small thing to concede. But managing the whole affair on top of Delight’s saddle was another matter. Then, because Megan wanted to ride the horse—Duncan was already making a horse-woman out of her—Elspeth held the toddler in her arms, her wedding bouquet of roses tied to the saddle horn with satin ribbons. She needed Megan’s soft, chubby body against her for support.

  There Alek stood in the street, legs spread—he was wearing proper hose and brogans, unlike her brothers, who wore their western boots with their kilts. Of the lot, there was nothing tamed in the men wearing kilts, despite their ruffled shirts and tartans with broaches, Alek’s contribution. Into the broaches were tucked Mr. Petrovna’s orchids, looking extremely fragile against the blue-and-green plaid.

  Duncan stood next to him, then Calum with his new daughter sleeping in his arms. Then Birk…Ah, Birk, love is coming to you sooner than you think, Elspeth thought, wishing that his road would be smooth. But when he finally found love, it would be strong and lasting.

  Oh, she loved Alek Petrovna, Jr., more with each heartbeat, though at times in the past week, she hadn’t liked him at all. If only he hadn’t held her, rested his face in the vulnerable part of her, her throat and shoulder and told her, “I want us to be married as soon as possible. I’m dying for you, Elspeth.”

  She’d gone down too easily, loving him, letting him have his way, because it was what she wanted. The moment she’d agreed, he’d tossed her over his shoulder and strolled over to the Petrovnas next door, despite the names she’d called him. Alek had told his mother and father that Elspeth had agreed to marry him within the week, right while Elspeth was hanging upside down on his backside. She bit him, of course, on a place she hadn’t nibbled before.

  She could feast upon him now—a big, darkly tanned man with untamed black curls drifting in the September wind. Alek wore LaBelle’s earring and looked as unyielding as Tallchief Mountain. Megan sat perfectly still, pacified, now that she was riding a horse with her aunt Elspeth. Elspeth bent to the toddler. “Isn’t he pretty, Meggie? Isn’t he just?”

  The quickening stirred within her as Duncan took Megan and Birk helped her down from the saddle. Alek, dark and somber, didn’t move, wouldn’t touch her now. She caught the image of Alek, standing behind her in the mirror, his ruffled shirt opened at the throat In the mirror, his hands trembled when he placed his grandmother’s pearls around Elspeth’s neck and then slowly, carefully began to undress her for their first night as man and wife.

  The entire audience watched as Alek strode to the horse and worked free Una’s shawl. He carried it to Elspeth and gently placed it around her.

  Talia’s soft sob carried through the silence, and Calum reached out a hand to draw her near. They stood there—Calum and Talia and baby Kira, Duncan and Sybil and Emily and Megan. Birk, the Petrovnas and Lacey stood on the other side.

  Circles, thought Elspeth, her heart full where once shadows roamed. Love for each other had seen them through, and now Alek added another dimension to the Tallchiefs.

  She caught the fire in his look, the promise of what he would do later to claim her as his wife. There was tenderness roaming his face, softening the scars, and hope and dreams coming true.

  She slanted him a look that promised what she would do to him in return. Then she moved to his side, admiring him, this man she loved more desperately each day.

  Epilogue

  Elspeth knelt by the mountain heather, leaves killed by October’s freezing descent. She dusted leaves from her parents’ stone and placed her cheek against Alek’s hand, resting on her shoulder.

  Though they’d only been married a month, she didn’t have to tell him the images moving through her; Alek knew. Her safe world had been torn apart by two bullets, taking her parents, and she’d struggled to tend her family. Now she had Alek, a part of her heart and soul, to share her life.

  He’d come to her out of the darkness he felt, revenge in his heart. But love had grown and captured them, despite the wounding of another time.

  She’d brought him here, her husband, to meet her parents.

  “I think the heather will come back,” he said, drawing her to her feet. “If it doesn’t, we’ll plant more. They should have it in the summer.”

  Oh, honey, I’m so happy for you, Elspeth’s mother seemed to say.

  He’ll cherish you all the days of his life, just like I did your mother, her father whispered in the wind.

  Then Alek took Elspeth in his arms and kissed her, because he understood.

  She clung to him and knew that she had crossed from one world to another. Their month of marriage had been sheer joy and promised more. The Marrying Moon was theirs to keep, a huge silver disk made for them alone.

  The Bridal Tepee would be used again throughout their lives, as it had been the first week of their marriage.

  Alek held her tightly, as though nothing could tear her away, and placed his rugged face within the hollow of her neck. “I like the name ‘Heather Pauline,’ do you?”

  Elspeth held very still as Alek’s lips drifted to her ear and nipped it. “Or Matthew. That’s a good, solid name for a boy.”

  He cupped her face and drew it up to him. He grinned, the October wind sweeping through his curls. “Why, Elspeth-love. You’re shocked. You actually have no idea, do you?”
>
  She saw the images again, a black, curly-headed girl with gray eyes, a baby boy and Alek…Alek, forever her love.

  ‘The legend of the shawl is true, Alek. How I love you….”

  The wind slid through the pine boughs above them.

  When the Marrying Moon is high, a scarred warrior will rise from the mists to claim his lady huntress. He will wrap her in the shawl and carry her to the Bridal Tepee and his heart. Their song will last longer than the stars….

  “Aye,” Elspeth murmured before she sought her true love’s kiss.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-5411-4

  TALLCHIEF FOR KEEPS

  Copyright © 1997 by Lois Kleinsasser

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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