“But that Indian was friendly!” She looked with wide, nervous eyes at the dense, encroaching forest. “Isn’t that what you said, doctor, that the Indian was friendly?”
“He was friendly, Mrs. Hooker. But the next one might not be.”
Ty got up and walked off fifty paces. He wedged the target into the V of a tree branch. Sauntering back, he stopped to pick up his rifle from where it leaned against the log. Elizabeth had come to stand by Caleb, her hand resting on his arm. She frowned at Ty, disapproving of what she obviously considered his corruption of her husband’s principles.
Ty ignored her. Giving Delia and Caleb each a hard, pointed look, he said, “Now you watch carefully how this is done. You have to know how to load as well as fire. And when there are fifty whooping warriors breathing down your neck, you have to be able to do it fast.”
Taking a paper-wrapped cartridge from his bullet pouch, he tore the end of it open with his teeth. He half cocked the weapon, snapped open the frizzon, poured a little powder from the cartridge into the pan, then snapped the frizzon shut. He set the rifle on its butt on the ground, poured the rest of the powder charge down the muzzle, and dropped in the bullet. Balling up the paper wrapper, he rammed it down the muzzle with the rod.
Squaring off to the target, he brought the rifle up to his shoulder, drew the hammer back to full cock, and pulled the trigger. There was the flash of a spark, a puff of acrid black smoke, and the crack of the shot bouncing off the trees.
Before Ty could stop her, Delia dashed out in front of him, heading for the tree to inspect the target. “Bull’s-eye!” she whooped with delight. “Ye hit the bull’s-eye, Ty!”
Ty waited with his teeth clenched until she came back, then he flung out one hand, grabbing her by the arm and hauling her up against him. He shoved his face into hers. “If you ever run out into the line of fire like that again, Delia-girl, I’ll whale the stuffing out of you.”
She was startled by his anger and then contrite, her lips forming a soft pout that looked so delectable it quashed Ty’s rage. He wanted to cover that mouth with kisses. Hot, hard, tongue-thrusting kisses that went on forever.
Instead, he let her go, backing off. He gripped the stock of his rifle so hard that his fingers whitened.
“I’m sorry, Ty,” she said, rubbing her arm where he’d grabbed her.
Ty struggled to get hold of himself. “Never mind. Just don’t do it again.”
“So can I try it now, Ty? Can I try it first?” she pleaded, excitement making her contralto voice dip down so low and husky it caused the muscles deep in Ty’s stomach to flutter.
“All right then.” He shoved the unloaded rifle into her hands. “Let’s see if you were paying attention.”
To his amazement she primed and loaded the rifle perfectly the first time and without any prompting. But when she went to lift the gun up to her shoulder, the end of it wobbled a bit. Ty stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, putting his left hand under hers to help support the rifle’s weight. His chest was now pressed flush along her back and the bulge of his manhood brushed against the curve of her bottom.
For a long moment they stood frozen as the air sizzled and crackled between them. Ty’s heart was thrusting heavily within a chest that suddenly seemed too tight and small. She felt fragile and vulnerable within the circle of his arms. He felt hard and powerfully male.
At the same time they both became aware that Caleb and Elizabeth were watching them. “Wh-what do I do now, Ty?” Delia asked in a breathy voice.
Ty sucked on his cheeks, trying to dredge some moisture back into a mouth that had suddenly gone dry. “Pull the cock back all the way.” He guided her fingers into drawing the flint-carrying hammer back to full cock. “Now, sight your eyes along the barrel … and squeeze the trigger, nice and slow.”
The rifle fired, slamming her back against his chest and ramming her bottom against his crotch that was now full to bursting with his hard and thickened manhood.
Ty let out a strangled oath and let go of Delia so fast he stumbled back a step, but he was still careful to keep her body between himself and the Hookers, who wouldn’t have been able to miss seeing the severe case of lust that had seized him.
Delia craned her head around to give him a brilliant smile. “Did I hit the bull’s-eye, Ty?”
He laughed shakily. “Christ, Delia, you didn’t hit the tree. ”
Her face fell.
He lifted her chin with his curled finger. “Come on, we’ll do it again. Only try keeping your eyes open this time.”
When she managed to nick a piece off the bottom corner of the target on the fourth try, he told her that was enough for now. He didn’t think he would be able to bear any more of being so close to her without doing something to ease the incessant ache in his breeches, and damn the consequences.
He turned with evident relief to Caleb. “You ready now, Reverend?”
Caleb looked miserable, but he nodded that he was ready.
The young reverend turned out not to be nearly as adept a pupil as Delia. The closest he came to the target was to shoot the branch off a tree five feet away. But Ty also knew that a man’s aim tended to improve considerably when the lives of his wife and children were at stake.
The sun set, and it quickly became too dark for target practice. Subdued by Ty’s reminder of the dangers inherent in their future home, the Hookers retired with their bedrolls across the fire. Ty dropped back down on the log and began to oil and clean his rifle. Delia sat cross-legged on the ground beside him, her back braced against the log. She watched his every move with a frown darkening her brow.
As the silence dragged out between them, he glanced up at her from time to time, until finally he said, “You got something to say, Delia, then spit it out.”
“Did ye really take scalps when ye lived with the Indians?”
He had expected this question sooner or later. Women, when they found out about his ten years with the Abenaki, were often more titillated than horrified. To Ty’s cynical amusement, his wicked, savage past had gotten him into more beds than charm and manners ever would.
“Yes, I’ve taken scalps,” he finally said, expecting to see her eyes go limpid and round with horror and her mouth tremble seductively with shock.
They didn’t. “A white woman’s scalp?” she asked matter-of-factly.
“A Yengi woman.”
“What?”
“Yengi is what the Abenaki call the white race. It means the silent ones.” At her perplexed look, he laughed. “It’s an Abenaki joke, Delia. Most whites don’t know when to shut up.”
“Oh … An’ did ye scalp a Yengi woman then?” she persisted.
He gave her a see-what-I-mean look and for a long moment he didn’t answer. He watched her from beneath carefully lowered lids. He saw no disgust or horror or even titillation on her face, but rather confusion, as if she had already accepted what he had confessed and was merely trying now to reconcile this murderous savage to the gentleman physician she had thought him to be. He was suddenly possessed with an overwhelming desire to have her like him—both parts of him, Abenaki and Yengi.
Ty scowled, looking away. Why the hell should he care what this little tavern wench thought of him? Had she cared what her customers at the Frisky Lyon thought of her when she’d let them sample her charms for two shillings a time?
But the truth was, he did care … He reached down and lightly stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Delia … I’ve never killed a woman.”
“But ye’ve killed men. Ye’ve lifted their scalps.”
“Yes. Not Yengi though, but only because by the time I was old enough to be a sannup, an Abenaki warrior, and go on a raiding party, my tribe wasn’t doing much raiding of the English settlements. Instead, we had a big war going on with the Erie tribes, mainly the Mohawks. It was a war, Delia, same as any other war, and in war men kill their enemy—” He realized he was justifying his Abenaki self and so he cut off th
e words. He had promised himself long ago that he would never again feel shame for those ten years spent as an Abenaki. “It wasn’t long after that I came to live with my grandfather.”
“But what was it like—”
“Sssh …” He pressed his finger against her lips. “No more talk, brat. Go to bed now. You need your sleep.” Her lips felt warm and moist and so incredibly soft beneath his finger, silken as a dewy rosebud. Her mouth parted open, inviting his kiss. But the warm pressure against the front of his breeches warned him he would never be able to stop with just a kiss.
His instincts told him he could take her by the hand, lead her into the forest, and she would go with him willingly. But after what had happened the last time he’d tried making love to her, he no longer trusted his instincts. The last thing he wanted was to get into another wrestling match while the Hookers witnessed the whole thing from the other side of the fire.
“Go to sleep, Delia,” he ordered. For once, and to his frustrated disappointment, she obeyed him.
Ty leaned back on the hind legs of the chair and drew deeply on his short pipe. “You got yourselves a nice spread here,” he said around the bit in his mouth. It was two days later and they were another fifty miles closer to Merrymeeting.
“You know, I think I can almost smell salt water,” Caleb said from the chair beside him.
Their host, a farmer by the name of Silas Potter, beamed and nodded. “Ocean’s just right beyond that rise over yonder.” The rise was covered by a stand of firs that blocked out the last rays of the sun and cut off all view of the nearby Atlantic. But if he strained his ears, Ty thought he could just pick out the low boom of the surf.
The farmer sat beside Ty on the front stoop of his hewn-log cabin. He had just started clearing the land and the spring corn had been planted in a field of girdled trees. Already the branches of the trees were dying, letting in the sunlight. That fall, after the corn was harvested, he would burn down the dead trees and haul out the stumps.
The cabin at their backs only had one room, but the farmer had built himself a fine barn with the help of some neighbors and he had offered to let Tyler Savitch and his party bed down there for the night.
“What about you?” he said now to Ty, raising his voice a bit over the sudden chir of the crickets. “You got some land up there on the … what was the place? The Merrymeeting Bay?”
“Some.” Ty gestured with his pipe at Caleb, who sat with his chin on his chest looking sleepy-eyed. “The reverend here is going to be our parson. We’re going to be an honest-to-God township now, thanks to him.”
Caleb grinned. “I thought we still lacked a schoolmaster.”
“Oh, we’ll get around that some way.”
From behind the men came the sound of feminine chatter and the clatter of crockery. A rush lamp spilling from the open door cast a wavering light onto the stoop. Silas and his wife, Betsy, had just fed them well on a hearty meal of hard cider, sausage, and cornbread, and now the women were clearing up the dishes while the men were outside for an after-supper pipe.
Silas had taken down a pair of ladder-back chairs—they were kept hanging from pegs on the wall when they weren’t being used—and set them out on the stoop. Then he poured off three tankards of spruce beer from the brew-kettle in the corner. He had offered the chairs to Ty and Caleb and settled himself on the overturned barrel. The farmer appeared glad for their company; they didn’t get many travelers along the post road this far east.
Delia poked her head out the door. “Mrs. Potter wants to know if you fellas want some more pone with jam,” she said to them all, although her eyes lingered on Ty.
And it was Ty who grinned at her and said, “Not me. I’m full as a stuffed goose.”
Delia gazed at him for a moment longer, a slight smile on her face, her hands clutching nervously at her petticoat. Then she realized both Caleb and the farmer were staring at her, so she went back inside.
Silas Potter nodded to the now empty doorway. “That li’l gal of yours, mister, she reminds me sorely of our daughter Jenny. They’s both about the same size—long and slim as trout. She died last winter, our Jenny. She was sixteen.”
“I think Delia’s a bit older,” Ty said, frowning.
The farmer sighed. “It was a bad winter.”
Caleb cleared his throat. “Our Lord’s ways are often hard to—” he began, but Ty cut him off.
“Do you still have any of your daughter’s clothes?”
The farmer nodded. “My Betsy couldn’t bear to throw them out.”
“I’d like to buy a few from you if I might.”
Caleb’s head jerked up in surprise, but Ty carefully avoided meeting the young reverend’s eyes.
The farmer stroked his chin and shook his head reluctantly, but his eyes had grown shrewd. “Well, I don’t know … What can you pay with?”
“Hard money,” Ty said and knew he had himself a sale. He might not have been able to barter with anything less than his horse, and he probably couldn’t have given away the Massachusetts shillings he had in his purse. But good hard English silver bought just about anything in the wilderness.
Early the next morning, Delia was kneeling stark naked in the middle of the horse stall where she had spent the night, trying to wash herself from a big bucket of well water, when the stall door burst open and Ty stepped through.
He froze in mid-stride and his eyebrows soared upward. His shoulders jerked slightly as if he would turn away, but in the end he was as incapable of moving as she was.
Delia had bolted upright. She stared at him, while his eyes went from her face to her breasts to the triangle of black hair between her thighs and back to her breasts again. His eyes darkened from dusky blue to stormy gray. She saw hunger in his face, hot and raw, and it brought her heart slamming up into her throat.
He took a step forward and that snapped her back to her senses.
She flung her arms across her breasts. “What the hell d’ ye think ye’re doing?” Her eyes searched the stall frantically for her clothes, but she’d tossed them into a corner out of reach. She glowered at him. “How dare ye come saunterin’ in here, bold as brass, and then proceed to … to…”
Ty flashed an unrepentant grin. “Morning, Delia,” he said, although his voice was more of a hoarse growl. He had one hand behind his back and now he brought it around in front of him. From his fingers dangled a bundle of clothing tied up with twine. “I bought you a present.”
Delia didn’t look at his present. In fact she barely heard what he said. All she could think of was that she was kneeling naked at Ty Savitch’s feet and she didn’t want him to leave. She wanted to stand up and press her naked body flush against the hard length of him and let him do to her what his eyes were promising.
“I see you’re having a bath,” he said, laughter now in his voice. “We must have entered another new month.”
“Get out,” she said through clenched teeth.
He tossed the bundle of clothing down beside her. “Aren’t you going to thank me for the present? Why not put them on for me now. Let me see how they fit.”
“Get out.”
“You know, brat, for such a scrawny little thing, you sure do have an almighty fine pair of—”
“Get out!” Snatching up the bundle of clothes, she reared up, swinging for his head.
Laughing, Ty threw his hands in front of his face and ducked quickly out the stall. Delia stood still, her flesh tingling where his eyes had caressed her. She felt disappointed, relieved, and frightened—all at the same time.
If he had touched her just then she would have died.
Never in her life had she more wanted a man to touch her.
Slowly she looked down at the bundle in her hand. She untied the string that held the clothes together. She found a heavy linsey-woolsey petticoat and a blue-striped calico short gown. There was a calico bonnet with a wide brim to match the short gown, along with a pair of brown worsted stockings and a shift made of soft, light li
nen. And lastly—and the sight of them brought tears to Delia’s eyes—a pair of calfskin shoes with pewter buckles and fancy red heels.
She ran her fingers over the smooth, supple leather, sighing with awe. Never had she owned anything so fine. They were a real lady’s shoes, she was sure of it, for they were not laced but fashionably buckled, and the red leather heels were over an inch high. With careful reverence, she slipped one on over her bare foot to see if it would fit, terrified it wouldn’t. It was only a little big.
Hurriedly, she finished bathing. She had borrowed a small dab of Elizabeth Hooker’s soft soap last night and she used it to scrub her skin until it tingled. The soap, scented with sassafras, left her smelling sweetly of laurel. She drew more water to wash her hair, rinsing it until it squeaked. She wanted to be really clean when she put on her new clothes.
They fit almost perfectly, as if they’d been made for her, except for the bodice that clung a bit too snugly to her full breasts. She ran her hands over the front of the short gown, down over the petticoat. Lastly, she put on the new shoes. She tried them out, gliding back and forth across the stall, feeling tall and graceful, like a princess.
Suddenly she laughed aloud and twirled around, hugging herself. She felt so pretty. She wished she had a looking glass so she could see how smart she looked.
She stopped dancing and squeezed her eyes shut, thinking she might just cry for pure happiness. No one had ever bought her clothes before. And the shoes! It had to mean Ty felt more for her than mere lust, in spite of what he had said. A man didn’t up and give a girl such a personal thing as a pair of shoes if he was only lusting after her.
Buying a girl things—surely a man didn’t do that unless he cared for her.
A light drizzle fell the next afternoon as Ty leaned against a paddock fence and cast a dubious eye at the small sturdy bay mare grazing on a scattering of hay. A fly bit her on the rump and she kicked up her heels.
“I don’t know,” he said. “She looks a bit too frisky to me. I was hoping for something with a sweet disposition.” To balance out the disposition of the wench who’ll be riding her, Ty thought with a smile.
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