"Tahnancoa," Paige whispered, burying her face in the comforter. "She made this for us. Oh, Myles, everyone gave us such fabulous gifts today. You know, Clara sewed me a beautiful nightgown as well as this wedding dress."
"You're not about to wear it," he growled. He'd watched her every minute all afternoon, this breathtakingly beautiful bride of his, and he'd seen the admiring faces of all his men as they whirled her, slender and radiant, around the dance floor.
It had been hard not to snatch her away hours ago. He'd fantasized about this moment, when at last the two of them were alone here in their own bedroom, when he could strip off her dress and claim her, once and for all, as his wife.
His fingers fumbled with the back of her dress, and impatience tinged his tone. "How the hell do these damnable buttons open, anyway? There must be fifty of the blasted things."
She shrugged. "I haven't a clue. Clara made the dress, and she fastened me into it."
He swore under his breath. "Between the nightgown and these buttons, I swear Clara's trying to preserve your virginity."
Paige giggled. "It's a bit late for that."
But strangely enough, in spite of all the nights they'd lain in one another's arms, he sensed that she felt suddenly shy with him, and it touched his soul.
The back of the dress was open now, and he pressed a row of kisses along her spine. But when he tried to slip the dress off her arms, Paige presented each wrist, secured with another dozen buttons each, for him to undo.
He shook his head and muttered, "I always thought Clara Fletcher liked me."
At last, the final tiny loop was undone, and he could slip the cool, smooth fabric down and off, allowing his hands to slide down her satiny skin, over her shoulders. He moved the straps of her petticoat down as well, and his eyebrows shot up when he caught sight of her new bra, flimsy and provocative, made of the same satin as the wedding dress.
He didn't comment until he'd stripped away both dress and petticoat, discovering in the process matching bikini panties and a flimsy garter belt, holding up her cream colored silk stockings.
He looked into teasing green eyes, and noted the faint blush that rose up the slender column of her throat.
"Well," she said, just a little defensive, "I wasn't going to wear that tattered old underwear of mine to my wedding, and the emporium doesn't stock any like it, so I had Clara make me these."
Again, there was that delicious shyness in her look and her voice. "Do you—do you like them, Myles? I—"
She paused and then said softly, "I sort of thought they could be my private wedding present for you." She gave a small, nervous giggle. "Clara was so scandalized when I showed her what I wanted, I thought she was going to have the vapors, but she made a good job of them after all."
"I can't imagine a finer gift." He decided he was going to buy Clara the largest box of chocolate bonbons the Hudson's Bay Company Store had in stock.
Paige's voluptuous beauty, revealed and yet concealed by the delicious underwear, took his breath away. He cupped her face in his hands and looked into her eyes, trying to convey a small part of the love and desire he felt for her.
"You are so beautiful," he whispered. "So very beautiful. I can't believe you're truly mine. My wife." He drew a shaky breath. "I love you, Paige. I'll be the best husband I know how to be. I'll love and cherish you all the days of my life."
The soft lantern light cast shadows across her skin, and he traced them with his lips, drawing her sweet fragrance into his nostrils, tasting the sweetness as his mouth traveled in leisurely paths across her lips, down over her chin, pausing at the pulse hammering in her throat.
He drew first one satin covered nipple and then the other into his mouth, glorying in the sharp intake of her breath. He searched for and found the hook that held the flimsy garment and undid it in one smooth motion.
He was getting better at this newfangled underwear, that was certain. All he'd needed was practice. He traced the skin above the skimpy garter belt with his tongue, and with exquisite slowness tugged the tiny panties down and off. The effort of going slowly made him tremble.
When their bodies joined at last, he watched her eyes, open and heavy lidded, search his countenance and seem to find whatever it was she was looking for. A smile tilted her lips, and he kissed it, making it his.
He called her name when he could wait no longer, and she answered with her body, finding the place he sought an instant ahead of him, drawing him with her into its glory.
The week after the wedding, Myles bought the little white house from Charlie Walker for a fair price and gave the deed to Paige as his wedding gift to her.
He moved all his belongings from the fort, and each night when he rode up to the house he marveled, This is home. I live here with my wife. And a grin would spread over his face, and unholy joy would fill his heart to bursting.
At the fort, however, there was little to smile about. Tension and unrest grew steadily as reports of Indian war drums and Métis’ anger intensified.
Myles had quietly begun stockpiling medicines, blankets, and quantities of dried food the previous fall, when Paige warned him about the coming rebellion.
After speaking with Dumont at Poundmaker's reserve in late September, Myles had written to the commissioner voicing his sympathy and concern for the Métis cause, warning of impending disaster should the government go on ignoring the demands of the native people and allowing their farms to be taken from them.
The only response he received was a reprimand, and a strongly worded suggestion that he mind his business and let the government mind theirs.
In December, Myles learned that Louis Riel had drawn up a bill of rights, asking in part for more liberal treatment for the Indians and free title for the land occupied by the Métis—reasonable and quite moderate requests, Myles believed.
He waited anxiously to hear of the results, and in early January, he learned that Sir John A. Macdonald had brushed these requests aside, just as he'd done all the others. Macdonald's exact words were incendiary, typical of the arrogance and disregard of the Canadian government for the native people.
"If you wait for an Indian or a half-breed to become contented," Macdonald had joked to his colleagues, "you may wait till the millennium."
But in February, as new reports of unrest filtered to the seat of government in Ottawa, Macdonald secretly ordered the Mounted Police to increase their forces at all the forts.
Of course, this secret spread like wildfire across the west. When the Métis heard that 500 more Mounties were on their way, Louis Riel assembled his men.
By late February, Myles knew beyond a doubt that the rebellion Paige had predicted was rapidly approaching, like a prairie fire sweeping across the land, threatening to destroy everything in its path. There was little to do but prepare and wait.
The second week in March, Paige was changing a burn dressing on a baby's arm one morning when a young Indian boy arrived with a message. "Please come," it read in scrawled letters. “Tahnancoa needs you right away."
Instantly, visions of Tahnancoa in early labor, perhaps hemorrhaging, losing the child she carried and wanted so much, leaped into Paige's mind.
The baby was due in late April, Paige calculated. Surely it would survive if it were born now. Paige guessed it to be a big child; the last time she'd examined Tahnancoa was two weeks before, and the baby already seemed close to term.
Anxiety filled her as she told the boy, who said his name was Swift Runner, to sit in the kitchen and have milk and bread while she finished with the dressing. Fortunately, this was the last patient of the morning and her parlor was empty. Abigail was off on a maternity case and wasn't in this morning,
"Keep this dressing clean, change it every day, put this ointment on the burn," Paige instructed the young mother, handing her screaming baby to her and trying to curb her impatience as the woman fussed with the child.
The moment the door closed behind her, Paige turned to the boy. He looked about 1
5, and Paige thought he must be one of Tahnancoa's relatives from the reserve.
"Do you know exactly what's wrong with Tahnancoa Quinlan?"
Naturally, he didn't know, but he was adamant that they leave right away. "Hurry," he insisted. "Big hurry. You want me saddle your horse?"
Paige accepted his offer, and he dashed out to the stables. In a frenzy, she gathered everything she could possibly think of for her medical bag, changed into her riding gear, packed an overnight bag, and scribbled a note for Myles, propping it on the table against the sugar bowl.
She forgot completely about the gun tucked in her underwear drawer.
Moments later, she was on Minnie, following the slender figure of the Indian boy on his piebald pony out of town.
The boy was setting a rapid pace, and Paige urged Minnie into a trot. The trail still had patches of snow, but it was melting today—the sun had broken through the scattered clouds.
When the four rough looking men on horseback appeared out of nowhere and surrounded her, Paige was mentally reviewing the problems she might encounter when at last she reached Tahnancoa, and at first she actually thought they were there to escort her the rest of the way to the Quinlan's farm.
"Bonjour, Madame la docteur. " The cheerful call came from a young man who rode up close beside her, then reached over and in one smooth motion snapped a lead rope to the bit on Minnie's bridle. Alarmed, Paige dug her heels into the pony's sides, trying to free herself, but the long rope held the pony fast
"Let me go," she hollered at him. "Undo that rope this minute. Who are you, what the dickens do you think you're doing? I'm a doctor, I'm on my way to help a sick friend and I must get—" she stopped in midsentence.
Swift Runner, who was supposed to be taking her to Tahnancoa, had now joined the men, and they greeted him as one of them.
Horrified, Paige realized she'd been tricked. Horror gave way to terror.
Did they mean to murder her? Rape her? She looked at each of them. They were bearded, rough, dusty looking men who looked as if they'd spent much time in the saddle. Besides Swift Runner, two were Indians, their long dark hair wild around their faces. The other two were half-breeds, wearing the distinctive red Métis sash.
One of the half-breed men urged his horse close to hers and lifted his hat in a gesture that might have seemed courtly under other circumstances. "Good day to you, Madame Paige." His English was good, lightly accented with his native French. "I am Urbain Langois, and this is my friend, Pierre Gervais. Please don't be afraid, we are Louis Riel's men, from Batoche. We will take you there to meet with him."
"Riel?" Paige's heart was hammering and her breath seemed stuck in her throat. "Louis Riel? But what—I don't understand. This is absolutely crazy. What does Riel want with me?"
He'd said they were taking her to Batoche. Wasn't Batoche at least a hundred miles away, somewhere to the east of Battleford?
Myles—oh, God, Myles, help me....
The man shoved back his hat and studied her closely. "You are the one who traveled here from another time, no? From the years still ahead?"
"Yes, yes I did. But what—"
"You are la docteur, the friend of Armand LeClerc?"
"Yes, I know Armand. But what does this have to do—"
He held up a hand to quell the flow of her words. "Armand, he tells Louis all about you, from the time the police bring you to the fort. He says that you know the future, that you are a mighty shaman who cures fevers and even knows how to start a child when a woman is barren. Dumont, too, he knows you. He has heard of your powers from Poundmaker. So Louis sent us to bring you to him now. We need you, Madame docteur, now and in the days to come."
Fear was rapidly giving way to outrage. "This is crazy, you can't just kidnap me like this. My husband will—"
"Ah, we know and respect your husband, Madame, but he is one of the Mounted, he is now no longer our comrade. He is one with the Anglais." He held out a hand and the other man tossed him the lead rope. He wound it around his saddle horn. "Come, now we must ride hard. Batoche, she is far from here."
Paige had no choice but to follow.
Myles lit a candle inside the back door, wondering where Paige might be. She hadn't said anything about going out when he left that morning. She'd been gone some time, he could tell because it was cold in the house. All the fires were out.
He took off his hat and undid his holster, laying it on the small table by the back door. He was tired, sick to his soul with the news that had reached the fort late that afternoon, via the telegraph wires. The news had electrified the entire detachment.
Louis Riel, with Dumont as his general, had assembled an army of Métis and Indians. He'd demanded that Major Crozier, in charge of the Mounted Police at Fort Carlton, 20 miles west of Batoche, surrender his government supplies and arms.
Crozier had, of course, refused.
It was nothing less than a declaration of war, and Myles knew that at any moment there would be bloodshed. He wanted to talk it all over with Paige; he needed the comfort of her knowledge tonight, the assurance that there would come a time when the fighting ended and peace would come again to the prairies.
It irritated him that she was gone, just when he most needed her. Where the hell was she?
He walked across to the table and took the glass chimney from the lamp and lit it, adjusting the wick, replacing the glass and blowing out the candle when the lamp's soft glow illuminated the room.
There was a note behind the sugar bowl, and he lifted it and held it in the lamplight so he could read it.
"Dearest Myles, Tahnancoa may be miscarrying. Have gone to her, will be home soonest, love you, Paige."
Myles stared at the note, aghast. As its ramifications became clear, a fist seemed to reach into his chest and squeeze his heart.
Dennis had been at the fort late that very afternoon, making the weekly delivery of beef. Myles had asked after Tahnancoa.
"She's feeling just fine," Dennis had replied with a grin. "Big as a house, gonna get us a real bruiser of a boy, I reckon."
If Tahnancoa wasn't ill, then who had lured Paige away?
Myles ran to the examining room. Paige always marked down in a daily ledger what patients she treated. The book was lying open on the narrow shelf beside the table.
'Ten A.M., baby Fryer, burned arm."
It was the final entry. Myles racked his brain, trying to remember if he knew anyone by the name of Fryer. If the mother had still been here when the messenger came—
He buttoned his tunic, strapped his gun on, and just before he raced out the door, thought to check on the weapon he'd insisted Paige take along when she rode alone.
He opened the drawer where she kept it. It lay there, nestled in her lacy clothing.
It took precious moments to saddle Major again, and all the while Myles's brain worked frantically.
Charlie Walker, as factor at the Hudson's Bay Company store, would know where the Fryers lived. Charlie knew everyone.
It took more than an hour to track down the Fryers' homestead, a good ten miles out of town. Myles lost the trail twice in the darkness, and he had to summon every ounce of patience to keep from screaming when at last he talked to the pretty young mother. Wide eyed and nervous, it took her precious long moments to stammer out the story of the Indian boy and the urgent message.
It was nearing midnight, black dark and cold, when Myles galloped back to the fort. He cursed at the sentry who challenged him and raced into the hospital.
He'd need a tracker, and Armand LeClerc was the best. Armand would help find the trail, he idolized Paige.
They'd have to wait for dawn, and then it might still be possible for Armand to discover how many there were, what direction they'd taken.
But Armand wasn't around. Myles burst into the small room at the back of the wards where the old Métis had always slept, but it was empty. Armand's clothes, bedroll, and rifle were missing, and with a sick feeling in his gut, Myles knew exactly where th
e old man was.
Armand had gone to join Riel's army.
Now and Then: Chapter Nineteen
By forenoon of the third day of constant riding, Paige was exhausted. The skin on her legs and buttocks was rubbed raw from the unaccustomed hours in the saddle, and it burned like fire with each new step Minnie took. There'd been no chance to bathe, and she felt filthy.
The men were pushing hard to get back to Batoche, and they rode from early morning until darkness forced a stop.
Physically, Paige was utterly miserable, but emotionally, she was numb. For the first two days, she'd agonized over Myles, wondering what he'd do when he found her gone, cursing herself for being such a gullible fool and racing off with the boy called Swift Runner. But as her physical exhaustion took over, the emotional turmoil became secondary.
Now, all she could think of was finishing this endless ride, reaching someplace where she could have a bath, where there was a bed to sleep in instead of a thin bedroll on hard packed cold earth, something to eat besides the revolting pemmican and rock-hard jerky which, along with bitter boiled tea and dried out bannock, was all the men seemed to carry in the way of food.
Paige was no longer afraid of them—they'd treated her respectfully and done what little they could to make her more comfortable. They'd even brought along a thick buffalo hide on which to spread her bedroll at night, and they stopped every few hours to let her rest a few minutes and, on legs that would hardly carry her, head for whatever shelter there was to go to the bathroom.
In spite of her physical misery, she could hardly stay awake this morning. Her head nodded, and several times she came near falling off Minnie's back. The country had changed gradually during the long ride. Today they rode through wooded areas where the snow was still deep, and the horses had to work hard at breaking a path.
"Madame, we are nearly there." Pierre's announcement brought her jerking awake.
Ahead was a wide river, the South Saskatchewan, and on the other side Paige could see a few log cabins and two larger houses.
Now and Forever: Time Travel Romance Superbundle Page 28