She craned her head around and looked up, and Ty was captivated by her lips as they smiled and parted. Her breasts rose and fell in time with the water lapping against the side of the canoe. The wind lifted her hair; it spread and fluttered like a raven’s wing. Their eyes met, held, then flashed apart.
He watched her breasts lift as she drew in a breath and her mouth part open as she spoke. “If the Abenakis adopted ye, they must have given ye a name. What did they call ye?”
For a moment Ty was so bedazzled he couldn’t think. “What?”
“Yer Abenaki name.”
“Bedagi.”
“Beda—” she started to repeat after him, but he put his hand across her mouth.
“The Abenaki believe you shouldn’t use a person’s name too often, or its power gets used up.”
She nodded, her eyes serious. Still, he kept his fingers across her mouth for a moment longer and when he finally did let his hand fall, she wet her lips with her tongue, and Ty’s breath caught. He shifted his weight to ease the pressure of his breeches tightening across what had become an iron-hard erection.
Her eyes held his and he felt himself being sucked like a twig into a whirlpool, drawn helplessly into those green-tawny depths. “Can ye say what it means in English—without usin’ up its power?” she asked, her voice low and seductively husky.
Ty had to swallow before he could speak. “It means Big Thunder.”
Delia burst into loud laughter.
“What the hell’s so funny, brat?” he demanded, disappointed—or was it relieved?—that the spell had been broken.
“Oh, Ty … Ty!” Delia exclaimed between whoops. “Big Thunder—how it suits ye!”
“You’ve missed the whole point,” he said, laughing now as well, although the tight swelling in his breeches remained.
Then the laughter left her face and that serious, beckoning look came back into her eyes. She had turned to face him, sitting back on her heels, but now she straightened and leaned forward to put her hands on his thighs. Before he could even guess what she was about to do, she brought her sweet mouth up to his.
The shock of her lips on his sent excitement surging back into Ty so hard and fast it rendered him momentarily dizzy. The canoe rocked dangerously, but he didn’t notice. He clutched her shoulders and pressed his lips down savagely hard onto hers, plunging his tongue into her mouth. She fell backward, bringing him with her. He shuddered violently at the feel of her warm, pliant flesh, but in that same instant, the force of their weight slammed into the birchbark hull. The canoe rolled.
Ty kept his hands locked on Delia’s shoulders as they were dumped with a splat into the water, but the canoe flipped over on top of them, landing a glancing blow on his brow. He blacked out for several seconds. When he came to, Delia was no longer in his arms and he was being pulled beneath the river surface by the force of the current.
Thrusting up with a hard kick, Ty tossed the streaming hair from his eyes, coughing up what he had swallowed while unconscious. He tread water, looking for Delia and fighting down a seizure of panic when he didn’t spot her right away. The overturned canoe was drifting away from him downstream, and for a moment he had the terrifying thought that she might be trapped beneath it. Then suddenly her head and one arm bobbed up a few feet away and he relaxed with relief, only to see her black hair go down again and her thin, white hand disappear from sight.
He dove down after her. The snow-fed river was freezing and inky black; he could see nothing. He groped, feeling for her, and the fear and the cold squeezed the air from his lungs. His chest began to burn and the frigid water stabbed at his eyes. Just as he thought he would have to surface again, his hand brushed her cloak. He tangled his fist in it and surged up, dragging her with him.
She hadn’t lost consciousness yet and he expected her to fight him from panic, but instead she lay limp within the cradle of his arm. He was easily able to swim the few dozen yards to the bank and haul her up onto its gravelly slope.
He helped support her as she struggled to push herself half upright, bracing on her straight, outstretched arms. She retched and coughed the water out of her stomach as her heaving lungs fought for air.
Finally, her stertorous breathing calmed. Pushing the wet hair out of her face with a shaky hand, she turned her head, giving Ty a weak smile. “I’ve never been too good at swimmin’.”
“Jesus, Delia!” he shouted at her because he had been so damn scared. Then he noticed that her lips were blue and shivers rippled along the surface of her skin, and he got scared all over again.
Ty had never built a fire so fast in his life, at least not without a tinderbox. Gathering up bits of fibrous bark and small twigs, he laid a pile of kindling. Then he found a dead dry stick about the width of a thumb-span and flattened it on both sides with his jackknife so that it would lie firmly on the ground. He notched it, and then, taking a slender dry branch, he sharpened one end and set it into the notch of the larger stick. He twirled the spindle rapidly between his palms. After what seemed an eternity a thin line of smoke appeared.
He blew on the spark and then used larger branches and logs to build up the fire, and as the wood caught he scolded her.
“You are the most damn helpless creature it’s ever been my misfortune to lead into the wilderness. You can’t ride and you can’t swim. You fall into pits and go wandering off by yourself and stumble across old Indians that you’re just damn lucky don’t take your scalp. You can’t hit a standing barn with a rifle and I don’t suppose you’ve even the remotest idea how to go about setting a snare.”
“D-don’t know,” she said through chattering teeth, inching up so close to the fire she was practically sitting in it. “I’ve n-never tried t’.”
He took off her sodden cloak and wrapped his arms around her, drawing her up to his chest, trying to impart some of his own body’s warmth to her as well. “Well then, what the hell good are you?”
“I c-can catch fish with my bare hands.”
He laughed. “I’d forgotten about that.”
“An’ I can make ye laugh, Ty. I’ve gotten real good at that.”
“Ah, Jesus, brat…” He hugged her tightly to him and, unconsciously, because she was so close, he pressed his lips into her hair. He held her like that for a long while, until she stopped shivering.
She sighed and rubbed her cheek against his chest like a cat seeking a pat. But the next moment she pushed and squirmed away from him. “Ye’re a most perplexin’ man, Tyler Savitch,” she said, tilting her head back to look up at him solemnly. “A man of contradictions.”
“I’m perplexing?”
“Aye. Ye’re like one of those tails on a clock—”
“Tails on a clock?”
She settled against him again, her back to his chest. “Aye the tail, ye know. That part that wags back and forth. Tick, ye’re yellin’ at me for this an’ that an’ every little thing. Tock, ye’re kissin’ me so hard we fall out of the canoe.”
“Pendulum,” Ty said, repressing a smile. “And you kissed me.”
Delia waved her hand, dismissing this minor detail. “Tick, ye’re braggin’ on yer refined an’ gentlemanly ways. Tock, ye bloody ogle me when I’m caught bare-arsed with nothin’ at hand t’ cover myself.”
Ty’s chest rumbled against her back. “I couldn’t help ogling. Never had I seen a more fetching sight.”
Delia preened like a jay bird, but she said, “A gentleman would have turned his back.”
“A gentleman would have,” Ty agreed.
Stretching her feet out before the fire, she wriggled her toes, pleased to have this chance to freely dissect his character. “Tick, ye care about people so much ye take up doctoring,” she went on. “Tock, ye—oh, bloody hell!”
She jumped up and ran back down to the river so fast she was already up to her knees in the water by the time Ty grabbed her.
“Delia! For God’s sake, what are you doing?”
The wet, mossy rocks beneath his
moccasined feet were slippery, and she fought him so hard she sent him sprawling onto his butt, bringing her down with him. He cursed as the icy water lapped around his most sensitive parts, but he didn’t dare let go of her, even after she punched him in the chest.
“My shoes, Ty! I’ve lost my shoes in the river!”
“Delia!” He wrapped his arms around her so tightly he knew he was practically squeezing the breath out of her, and still she fought him. He had to shake her roughly. “They’re gone! I’ll buy you another pair. I’ll buy you a dozen pairs.”
She stopped struggling. She twisted around and looked up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. “But they were the first that ye bought me, Ty. An’ there can always only be one first.”
“Aw, Delia.” He held her, rocking her in his arms as she sobbed against his chest. “Don’t cry, honey. Don’t cry…”
They were only a pair of shoes, Ty thought, and it would be a simple matter to replace them. He couldn’t understand why they were so important to her. Yet she cried as if their loss broke her heart.
Delia stood on the inn’s front porch and peered through the driving rain at a small bay mare tied to the hitching post. “Oh, Ty, ye’ve gone an’ bought me a horse!” She looked up at him, her eyes glowing, her smile wide.
Ty stared back at her, his brows drawn together, as if he were trying to decipher the meaning of the look on her face. Instinctively, Delia ducked her head, afraid he would see too much.
“I got tired of walking,” he finally said, sounding almost angry, but she was getting used to his morning grouchiness, and it no longer bothered her. “Besides,” he added, “I told you I would.”
Heedless of the pouring rain, Delia leaned out from beneath the shelter of the porch roof to give the mare a pat on the muzzle. The mare blasted air out of her nose, and Delia snatched her hand back. She expected Ty to laugh at her, but he didn’t.
He squinted against the rain as he looked down the road where a boy walked, driving a cow with a stick. “I wasn’t able to find you any shoes though. The only cobbler in Portsmouth is so busy he said it would take him at least half a day before he could get around to sewing you up a pair. We really don’t have time to wait, Delia. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, that don’t matter t’ me, Ty,” she said, although every time she thought of the shoes lost forever at the bottom of the river, she felt so sad. It was as if she was never meant to have them, just as she was never meant to have Ty’s love. And the sadness swelled inside her until she felt she would choke on it.
“I don’t need shoes, Ty. Especially now that I’ve got my own horse t’ ride.”
Ty didn’t seem to hear. He had bent over to rummage through the haversack at his feet. “I thought in the meantime you could wear these,” he said offhandedly, and he held up a pair of soft white deerskin moccasins intricately decorated with colorfully dyed porcupine quills and shell beads. They were so beautiful Delia didn’t dare reach out to take them. Tears pressed behind her eyes, making them ache.
“Oh, Ty…”
He pushed the moccasins against her stomach. “Well, aren’t you going to take them?”
She raised her eyes to his face. His mouth was set in a hard, taut line. But his eyes blazed with a turbulent emotion she didn’t understand, though it had the power to make her heart thunder crazily in her chest.
The porch suddenly seemed too small to contain them both. She made a tiny movement as if she would dash out into the rain. His hand fell heavily on her arm and she jumped.
“But, Ty, I can’t,” she protested.
“Yes, you can. Sit down,” he ordered gruffly, gesturing behind her at a bench that leaned against the wall next to the inn’s front door. “I’ll put them on for you.”
Delia gathered her cloak beneath her and sat. The rain overflowed from the gutters, splashing into the muddy yard, but the porch was snug and dry. Ty knelt at her feet. He bracketed her legs with his widespread thighs, his position pulling his buckskin breeches tautly across his hard muscles. His hunting shirt was open at the neck, revealing an expanse of brown skin and a V of curling dark chest hair. Nestled within the hair was a small deerskin pouch hanging from a thong around his neck.
She touched it with her fingertips. “What’s this?”
He looked up. His eyes were shadowed, brooding. “It’s just a bag.”
“But what’s in it?”
He sighed. “A totem … a symbol. Of my manitou, my guardian spirit.”
She stared at the bag where it rested against his chest. She wondered how it would feel to twist her fingers in that soft, curling hair. Or to press her lips there, in the hollow in his throat where his pulse throbbed steadily.
“Ye actually believe in those Indian things? In guardian spirits?” she asked to break the heavy silence, and her voice quavered shamefully.
He didn’t answer. “Give me your foot,” he demanded instead.
His hand encircled her ankle, and the touch of his fingers on her bare skin sent an exquisite shiver up her leg. Her stomach went all fluttery and her heart all skittery, and she shuddered.
“See there, you’ve probably already caught a chill,” Ty grumbled. “Running around barefoot in this weather.” He shoved on the moccasin almost roughly. “Give me your other foot.”
“These are a lady’s moccasins, Ty. How did ye come by them?” she asked, and then immediately cursed her flapping tongue. For they probably belonged to an Abenaki girl who had been his lover, or perhaps still was.
She didn’t think he was going to answer her, but then he said, “They belonged to my mother.”
Delia gazed down at the bent head of the man kneeling at her feet. Her heart was filled with so much love for him it hurt. “I promise I’ll be specially careful with them, Ty,” she said softly. “ ’Cause I know ye’ll be wantin’ them back.”
“They’re a gift, Delia. I don’t want them back.”
The other moccasin was on now, but Ty didn’t let go of her foot. He rubbed his thumb over her toes, smoothing the moccasin’s supple leather, then his hand moved up her calf, sliding beneath her cloak and petticoat to the back of her knee. Delia’s whole body jerked.
He looked up at her, and his face was transformed by a gentle smile. “Are you ticklish, brat?”
“Aye,” she gasped, bereft of breath. She held her whole body stiff, not daring to move in case she tempted his hand to wander further. And yet, yet … there was a sweet, burning spot between her thighs that ached for him to touch her there.
Instead he trailed his hand lightly down her calf, his fingers lingering on her ankle before letting it go, and all the while his eyes were fastened on hers. His intense look melted her, as if she were a crock of butter left in the broiling sun.
“Come to me tonight, Delia,” he said, his voice low and as compelling as his eyes. She found herself leaning into him, as if he had spoken too softly for her to hear, when in fact his words seemed to sear into her flesh the way his touch had earlier. “Will you come to me tonight?”
“What?” To Delia’s horror her voice squeaked like that of a mouse caught in a trap.
He gave her a brilliant smile, relaxed and easy, almost wicked. “I’m asking you to come to my bed tonight. I want to make love to you, Delia.”
The door creaked open and they both jerked around, Delia blushing guiltily. The Reverend Caleb Hooker came onto the porch, followed by his wife. He gave Delia a conspiratorial wink and then looked out at the driving rain. “We’re going to be miserable riding in this all day. What are you doing kneeling at Delia’s feet, Ty? You wouldn’t by any chance be propos—”
“Don’t be an ass, Caleb,” Ty got up fast, then bent over to brush imaginary dust off his knees, flushing under Caleb’s knowing smirk.
Delia held her feet out straight before her, showing off the moccasins. “Lookit what Ty’s given me.”
“Why, they’re beautiful!” Elizabeth had been staring morosely out at the weather, but now she stepped up to Delia
and a smile hovered on her dainty lips. “Aren’t they beautiful, Caleb?”
Caleb’s face lit up at the sight of his wife’s smile. “Yes, indeed.”
“Hell, let’s get started,” Ty growled, bending over to snatch up his haversack. “I’ve never known a group of people for dawdling away a morning. At this rate I’m going to be an old man by the time I make it back to Merrymeeting.”
“Don’t pay attention t’ him,” Delia said. “He’s always ornery as a weasel in the mornin’s. Come noon he’ll have growled himself out of it.”
The Hookers laughed and Ty scowled at her. She gave him an impish grin in return. I want to make love to you, Delia. Had she really heard him say that?
They took the ferry across the river to Kittery. From there they would follow the King’s Highway, which ran parallel to the sea all the way up to Falmouth, deep in Maine territory. As Delia rode beside the Hookers’ cart, she looked around the small settlement with curiosity, for this was where Ty had been born. Born and brought up within a loving family until that February night when he had been snatched away by the savages and made into a savage himself. Yet eventually he had been found and brought back—forced back, was the word Ty had used—and made again into someone else, an English gentleman.
Delia’s heart ached for Ty, the boy. Three times in his early life he had suffered wrenching losses of those he loved—his father, his mother, and then a father again. Delia, who herself had lost a mother to death and a father to drunkenness, could well understand the agony in Ty’s eyes as he had stood within his grandfather’s luxurious bedchamber and said, I don’t know what I am anymore.
How she longed to be able to wipe away his pain and loneliness. She thought that if only he would let her, she could heal him with her love. And he could heal her with his.
As they passed a palisaded garrison house in the center of town, they saw a pair of Indians shooting with bows and arrows at a target painted onto the spiked wooden wall. A group of rowdy, bearded men stood around, betting high stakes on the outcome.
Delia glanced over at Elizabeth, hoping she wouldn’t start screaming the way she had the last time they had come across an Indian. But Elizabeth was too busy being miserable to be frightened. She sat hunched in the ox cart, the hood of her cloak pulled over her head. Just then the wind changed direction, dashing rain hard into their faces. Caleb turned solicitously to his wife, helping to draw her cloak tighter around her. Elizabeth glanced up briefly at her husband, but the look she gave him was not one of gratitude.
Wild Yearning Page 13