by Merry Farmer
Two Spots closed her mouth. She nodded. “I will help you.”
“Good.” Aiden touched her shoulder in thanks. “The first thing you can do to help is to find Sky Bear and keep him company.”
“Keep him company?”
“Talk to him. Ask him how he’s doing. Be friendly with him.” Make him fall in love with you, as he should, Aiden finished to himself.
Two Spots nodded, a blush coming to her cheeks. “I will do this thing.” She took a step back, then turned to go.
“Everything will be all right,” Katie called after her as she headed up the hill and back to the village. As soon as she was gone, Katie turned to Aiden. “What devious plan is going on in that mind of yours, Thinks Like Fox?”
Her sly teasing was just what he needed to bring his smile back in full force. “I’m not entirely certain yet, a ghrá. But as soon as I know, you can bet I will amaze you with my cleverness.”
“Don’t call me that,” she scolded, a twinkle in her emerald eyes. “Call me Burns With Fire.”
“I’ll do better than that.” He stepped close to her and scooped her around the waist, bringing her body flush with his. “I’ll make you burn with fire.”
He brought his mouth down over hers in a kiss that took her by surprise. She dropped her water skin and gasped. He took advantage of her parted lips to tease his tongue against hers. The taste of her was sweeter than any honey and hotter than the sun. He closed his other arm around her and held her close as he drank fire from her mouth. The Cheyenne dress she wore was far less cumbersome than miles of skirts and fabric. He dropped a hand to her hip and caressed her backside, feeling every curve like he’d never felt them before.
He half expected her to pull away, but instead she hummed low in her throat and circled her arms around him. His senses reeled at the sensation, blood pounding to his groin. He pressed her hips into his swiftly-growing erection, loving the way she felt against him. If he’d been a bolder, braver man, he would have ducked into the nearest empty tipi with her and made her beg for him to make her his. But it was a risk he couldn’t afford to take.
With a reluctant groan, he let her go, taking a half step back. He was grateful that the Cheyenne tunic hid the reaction his body had to her.
“You can deny your feelings for me in front of the tribe all you want, a ghrá,” he said, voice rough with desire, “but you can’t hide them one bit when you kiss me.”
Her chest rose and fell with her panting breaths as she stared him down. The fire in her eyes and her kiss-reddened lips were a direct challenge. “What do I have to deny?” she replied. “Haven’t I always said I wanted a hero? Adventure? Haven’t I always said that I wanted to hold a brave man in my arms?”
A burst of pure desire hit Aiden like a hurricane. “Haven’t I always been there, this whole time?” he asked, holding his arms wide.
“Aye, you have.” She bent to pick up her water skin, sending him a sly look as she did. “You should have showed me this side of you a lot sooner.”
“Wicked woman,” he growled, not sure if he wanted to argue with her or make love to her. “You never would have given me a chance before.”
“Then you’ll just have to take that chance now,” she said. She straightened and tossed her water skin from one hand to the other before turning on her heel and walking away.
The sway of her hips and the devilish look she sent him over her shoulder as she headed to the river would keep him from sleeping that night. He didn’t think he’d be able to sleep a wink until he made her his in every way.
To do that, he needed to formulate a complete plan.
Chapter Fourteen
Play along. Pretend that she was seriously considering Sky Bear’s offer of marriage. In some ways, being the good girl and going along with everything that Magpie Woman and the others wanted made life easier for Katie. She met far less resistance in the daily tasks she was given for the next two days as long as she offered little resistance in the first place. She would never mistake Magpie Woman for a kind and gentle soul, but at least she stopped grabbing her by the arm and dragging her from one end of the tipi to the other whenever she needed something.
On the other hand, Sky Bear was insufferable. The best Katie could do to fulfill her agreement with Aiden was to sit with Sky Bear in front of his tipi at mealtime now and then, and to not snap back when he tried to talk to her.
“Sky Bear says he will win many horses for you,” Two Spots translated his words as she sat between them at midday on the second day. Her face was drawn with misery while Sky Bear sat straight and bragged. “He says you will make him a tipi that will be admired by all.”
“I will make him a tipi?” Katie balked, doing her best to sound curious instead of incredulous.
“Yes, it is the women who—” Two Spots began to explain, but Sky Bear cut her off with a frown and a question. He must have demanded to know what Katie had asked. Two Spots gestured briefly to her, then went on with her translation.
Sky Bear frowned in bewilderment at Katie, then asked Two Spots a question. With what sounded like infinite care and understanding, Two Spots offered some sort of answer to whatever he had asked, gesturing once to Katie. That sparked a conversation between Sky Bear and Two Spots as he pried for more information. Neither one of them included her in the discussion.
Katie kept her mouth shut and watched. She hadn’t actually seen the two interact before. Something changed in Two Spots’ face as she spoke to Sky Bear. She wasn’t shy or shrinking, like she was with many other people. She looked Sky Bear straight in the eye and answered everything he said with a patience that was plain in her whole body. Sky Bear, for his part, shifted to face Two Spots more directly as they spoke. He gave her his full attention, but Katie couldn’t tell from his expression what he thought of her. How the man could not see that Two Spots loved him to distraction was a mystery. Why he would be so insistent on marrying some stranger when Two Spots clearly adored him was an even bigger question. Then again, when it came to men and love, the whole thing was a riddle.
As if he’d planned it, the soft strains of Aiden’s fiddle playing a ballad rose up through the village. Katie couldn’t see where he was, but the music he played told her he was nearby. The sweet strains of the love song comforted her. They also shot an arrow through her heart.
Her cheeks flushed. Aiden’s plan for her to go along with whatever was asked of her wasn’t the only thing that she’d taken to heart the other afternoon. The look he’d given her while Two Spots told her story of unrequited love had been as good as a scolding. She was stubborn and freedom-loving, but she wasn’t an idiot. There was a similarity between Two Spots’ and Sky Bear’s story and hers and Aiden’s.
“Sky Bear is brave,” Two Spots told her as the two of them walked back to Magpie Woman’s tipi after the meal. “He said he will take the horses he will give you from his enemies.”
Katie nodded, staring at the ground as they walked slowly through the village. Aiden was brave. He hadn’t hesitated for a moment before leaping on a horse and riding after her when she was kidnapped. He had put himself in a dangerous situation for her sake, and now he was trying hard to find a way out at great risk.
“Sky Bear is clever too,” Two Spots went on, her smile wide and relaxed. “He has given the elders many good suggestions for ways the tribe can strengthen itself.”
“Is that so?” Katie replied, not really listening. Aiden was as clever as they came. He had made her life easier a hundred times over with his clever ideas. He was working hard to come up with a plan that would get her out of the Cheyenne village without burning any bridges or putting them in greater danger. He cared for everyone, sought to hurt no one. Her chest warmed and ached at the thought and at the conclusions that were forming, some against her will.
“Sky Bear is noble as well,” Two Spots went on. “He will make a good chief someday.”
And Aiden was about as pure-hearted as they came. He’d taken care of her every step of their journey
, not just along the trail or across the ocean. He had found a way to look out for her in spite of her stubbornness for as long as she could remember. It was so much easier to see when he wasn’t standing over her shoulder, and lately, ever since the confrontation during the dance at Ft. Caspar when he put her on the spot, it was as if he was learning to give her space. Even if their positions in the Cheyenne camp were the reason for that space. It went beyond simple proximity, all the way to trust.
The ache in her chest dropped to a sick feeling in her gut. The last thing she wanted, the last thing she had ever wanted, was to lose herself in a man. She despised the way a woman became nothing more than an extension of her husband once she tied her heart to him. She wanted to be herself. She wanted to find adventure and excitement and true love that wouldn’t swallow her up. She was Burns With Fire. But now the pinprick of the idea that Aiden wouldn’t stop her from being that person, even as he worked to save her, had grabbed hold and turned into a flood of questions. Had she been wrong to deny Aiden and hold him at arm’s-length all this time? Was he exactly what she had been looking for all along? Could she still be herself and be his at the same time?
They arrived at Magpie Woman’s tipi. When Two Spots pushed the flap aside for Katie to enter, Katie stepped in, then stopped short. Several women were busy inside the tipi, Magpie Woman, Yellow Sun, and a few others she knew to be Sky Bear’s relatives, though she didn’t know them by name. They stopped what they were doing and turned to her with wide smiles—except Magpie Woman, who crossed her arms and frowned—and one of them held up a beautiful tunic of soft, light-colored leather. Yellow Sun chattered happily and gestured from the tunic to Katie.
“Yellow Sun says the women have been busy making your wedding tunic,” Two Spots translated. The joy had gone out of her voice.
Katie inched back, her head brushing the slanted wall of the tipi. She wanted to run, to find Aiden and tell him his idea was a stupid one. Instead, she forced herself to smile, though the effort nearly cracked her face.
“What am I supposed to do?” she asked Two Spots through clenched jaw.
Yellow Sun had started talking again. She took the tunic from the woman who held it up and carried it across the room. “Yellow Sun wants you to try it on so they can see how it looks.”
“But I don’t want to try it on,” Katie protested as Yellow Sun came near, forcing her smile to stay in place. She raised her hands, intending to ward the young woman off, but instead Yellow Sun dumped the soft leather tunic in her arms. Katie just stood there, fighting down the panic that rose in her chest.
“You should admire the work,” Two Spots whispered to her, stepping sideways to place a hand on the intricate beadwork across the tunic’s bodice.
“If I admire it, will they think I have chosen to marry Sky Bear?” Katie whispered back.
Two Spots replied with a long, mournful look. That decided things.
“I can’t do it,” she said and handed the beautiful garment back to Yellow Sun. “I won’t do it. I can’t go along with this cockamamie plan.”
Yellow Sun’s smile slipped and the rest of the women in the tipi murmured to each other. Magpie Woman narrowed her eyes, then said something firm, looking at the other women but gesturing to Katie.
Two Spots raised her eyebrows. “Magpie Woman says that she was right, that they never should have made the tunic. She says it would be a bad thing for you to marry Sky Bear.”
“Yes,” Katie spoke up. She stepped away from the side of the tipi and held out a hand to Magpie Woman. She couldn’t believe that she actually agreed with the harridan. “Yes, listen to Magpie Woman. This would be a bad thing.” Two Spots translated right on the heels of what she was saying, right up until she said, “Sky Bear should marry Two Spots. She’s the one who’s in love with him.”
Halfway through repeating her words in Cheyenne for the others, Two Spots stopped. She must not have stopped soon enough, because Magpie Woman and the others all looked to her, eyes wide with surprise.
All except Magpie Woman. Whatever Two Spots had failed to translate, Katie had a feeling Magpie Woman filled in the blanks. She said something emphatic, gesturing to Two Spots, then crossing to stand beside her as she continued her speech.
“M-magpie Woman says that this is what she has said all along,” Two Spots translated for Katie in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “She says her son is stubborn and,” she glanced to Magpie Woman in horror, “and should have sense beaten into him.”
The sudden image of Magpie Woman beating Sky Bear across the backside with the stick she used to poke the fire was so strong that Katie laughed out loud. The other women looked at her as if she’d grown another head, but Katie didn’t care. A new shoot of hope grew up from the muddy waters of the whole situation. She’d known Magpie Woman didn’t approve of her or the match, but the fact that she had thought her son should marry Two Spots all along was too good to be true.
The other women descended into some sort of argument. Magpie Woman stepped away from Two Spots to join in. Yellow Sun glanced between the quarreling women, looking mournfully at the wedding tunic in her arms from time to time. Two Spots stood where she was, eyes wide as she followed whatever arguments were being made. For once, her head was not bowed, even though it was clear they were talking about her.
“Say something,” Katie urged her. “Tell them you want to marry Sky Bear.”
“I….” Two Spots stumbled over her words. “It is not my place.”
“Sure it is. You love him, don’t you?”
“He does not love me.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
If it was possible, Two Spots’ eyes grew even larger.
“Here.” Katie was done with arguing, whether she understood the words or not. She marched across the room to Yellow Sun and plucked the wedding tunic out of her arms. Without another word, she marched back to Two Spots and thrust it at her. “Take it. It should belong to you anyhow.”
“But I—”
“Take it.”
She dumped the tunic against Two Spots, who was forced to grasp it to keep it from falling to the floor. As soon as she had it in her arms, Two Spots clutched the tunic to her chest. The motion stopped the other women’s argument flat. They turned from each other to stare at Two Spots. A beat later, Magpie Woman said something with a nod and a definitive gesture toward Two Spots.
“Magpie Woman says this is as it should be,” Two Spots said in awe. One of the other women continued talking, the tone of her voice weaker. “Sweet Corn Woman says this proves nothing, that Sky Bear must choose, not women.”
“That may be,” Katie said, even as Magpie Woman said something to Sweet Corn Woman in a tone that sounded very much like Katie’s sharpest sass, “but I have a feeling this just helped us get one step closer to each of us being exactly where we’re supposed to be.”
The afternoon was warm and a gentle breeze swirled through the grass down by the stream where Aiden sat. He’d taken his fiddle to the stream, ostensibly to help Follows The River—the boy who had found him on that first day, over a week ago—fetch water and gather firewood. He and Follows The River had settled in the dappled patch of shade to enjoy each other’s company and music. The day grew brighter when Katie and Two Spots came over the crest of the hill to join them. When Katie greeted him with the words, “You are not going to believe what just happened,” he knew he would stay right where he was with her until she finished telling him.
And what a story it was.
“Then Sweet Corn Woman said that what Magpie Woman thought didn’t make a difference, it was Sky Bear’s decision,” she chattered on, her brogue turning thick with her excitement. She couldn’t keep still as she talked and paced circles around him. He wanted to play a jig to accompany her mood. “I don’t know what was said after that exactly, but I think it would be simple as pudding to turn Sky Bear’s attentions to Two Spots now.”
Aiden was ready to leap for joy. The only thin
g holding him back was Two Spots’ rueful shake of her head.
“Magpie Woman said her son should be called Stubborn Bear. Once he catches an idea, he does not let it go.”
Follows The River frowned and asked a pouting question. Two Spots let out a breath and replied to him.
“He is upset because we are talking in words he does not like,” she explained. She said a few more quick things to him.
“Are you telling him what we’re talking about?” Aiden asked with a grin. He could only imagine how clever little Two Spots would explain such important grown up matters to a tiny boy.
Follows The River replied to whatever Two Spots had told him. Two Spots sighed and said, “He thinks Sky Bear is a Stubborn Bear too. He does not listen when Follows The River plays his flute.”
“Sky Bear doesn’t listen to a lot of things, I’m sure,” Katie grumbled. She crossed her arms and scowled with such ferocity that Aiden ached to kiss the wrinkles out of her brow. He loved her when she was in a right fine temper.
Follows The River asked another question, which Two Spots answered. His reply brought a faint, twitching smile to Two Spots’ lips. “He says that when he does not listen, his mother sends him to bed without supper.”
Aiden laughed. “It seems it doesn’t matter whether you’re Cheyenne or Irish, mothers will still trundle their young ones off to bed when they’ve been bad.”
“You would know, Aiden Murphy,” Katie snipped at him, her eyes dancing with mischief. “I’m sure you’ve been sent to bed more times than you can count.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being sent to bed, a ghrá,” he said to her with a wink that brought a deep blush to her cheeks.
“Hold your tongue,” she scolded him. “There are children present.”
“Aye, there are,” he agreed. “Though I don’t think he’d know one word from another, even if I spelled it out clear as day.”
A tickle hit the back of his mind, as if he’d stumbled across something hidden in the grass without seeing what it was. His lips twitched and he narrowed his eyes as if it could help him recapture what it was.