WARRIOR'S BRIDE

by Nina Bruhns

  Tanya met his gaze when he was forced to stop at a red light. "I'm questioning your motives, Cole. I see better solutions to this thing."

  "Oh?" He couldn't wait to hear this. "My cousin Tanya, the relentless pursuer of Indian children's rights, suddenly has a change of philosophy?"

  "No. But I'm wondering if this is about you wanting your baby, or if it's about that huge chip on your shoulder."

  "Tanya…" He tried to warn her off with his tone. "You're treading on thin ice."

  "Well, call me reckless, but I've got to say it. Cole, it's me, nuyukssum—my cousin. Remember? I was there when you first came out to Rincon Rez twenty years ago looking for your birth family. It hasn't escaped my attention that in all that time you've never attempted to speak to your real mother, even though she certainly wants to. I also happen to know that the line next to 'father' on your birth certificate is blank. But Cole, doing this won't make up for past hurts. You don't have to prove anything to anyone. There are other ways to handle this."

  "Yeah. I could force my paternal rights, but I'm not," he reminded her contentiously. "By invoking the ICWA, I only gain custody if she gives up the baby for adoption."

  "I suppose that's something."

  "Read my lips, T. I want my baby. Not to prove anything. Not for revenge, or some misguided sense of obligation. But because I want to have my child with me. To love him or her, and be a family."

  She tilted her head and tossed him a sly smile. "If that's true, why don't you try the obvious solution first?"

  He sighed in resignation. The only thing obvious to him was that she wasn't going to shut up until she'd had her say. "And what would that be?"

  "Marry the baby's mother."

  The brakes squealed as he slammed the car to a halt in front of the center. "Excuse me? I think I must have heard you wrong."

  Tanya jumped out of the Z. "From what I could see, that woman is not what you seem to think she is, Cole." She leaned in through the open window. "I remember you being ready to take a chance on her back at the powwow when you told me and the girls you'd fallen in love after one night with her."

  "Temporary insanity. That was before she'd run off on me without a word and tried to give away my baby. I'd say those are both damned good reasons for not marrying the woman now."

  She shrugged. "That may be true, but maybe not. Either way, don't let ancient history blind you to the possibilities. You think about that, nuyukssum. By the way, this new car of yours is too fancy by half. It'll ruin your harmony completely. What happened to the truck?"

  "Sitting in the driveway with a For Sale sign in the window. And the only thing ruining my so-called harmony is your infernal meddling." Her and her damned Navajo philosopher boyfriends. Cole glared at her when she had the gall to wink, then beat a hasty retreat up the center steps.

  Holy moly. The chica was on drugs. Marry Rini Herelius? Not on your life, nuyukssum, cousin mine.

  It would never happen.

  Not in a million years.

  * * *

  Katarina took a deep breath, opened the door to the swanky offices of Dr. Lynn Morris and went in. She glanced quickly around the waiting room and let out a breath of relief. Colton Lonetree was not there.

  She couldn't believe she had agreed to this. It had been five days since the father of her baby had served his notice at Henderson's office, four since he'd somehow tracked down her address and three days since Alex had convinced her she had to make a few concessions. Compromises, in order to show her willingness to include him in the baby's life. Even if she didn't like it. In other words, she would have to let him pay for some fancy obstetrician in order to convince him that he would be welcome to take the kid to powwows whenever he liked. So he wouldn't sue her for custody.

  Katarina gave her name to the receptionist and accepted a pile of forms to be filled out. She'd been worried Lonetree would show up for her appointment with the obstetrician, but apparently the hotshot lawyer had found a more lucrative way to spend an hour.

  Alex's warning echoed in her mind. You have to be nice to the man, Rini. Show your moral superiority.

  Be nice.

  Right.

  Katarina skipped over a few financial questions she didn't know how to answer. Maybe she'd get lucky and they wouldn't let her in. She felt perfectly comfortable going to the clinic at UCLA, along with fellow students and other poor people. She didn't want to be here in this posh office, accepting what amounted to charity. Lonetree claimed to be concerned that she got the best care possible, but Katarina knew better. It was conscience money.

  When the outer door opened, every other woman in the room looked up. She'd be damned if she would. She sensed more than saw when he stood before her. "I wish you hadn't come," she muttered.

  There was a pause before he answered. "Now, you don't mean that, Fire Eyes."

  Fire Eyes? She scowled, shooting him a dagger look. "Oh, don't I?"

  He smiled and motioned to the woman sitting in the chair next to her to move down one. She was more than happy to comply, Katarina noted with disgust. In fact, if the woman weren't at least eight months pregnant, Katarina would be convinced she was flirting with the man. Unbelievable.

  Rini took a critical look at her one-time lover as he settled into the chair beside her. His well-tailored gray suit was impeccable, his tie a rich turquoise silk, his shoes undoubtedly Italian leather. His crisp white shirt looked fresh and starched and complimented his dusky complexion to perfection.

  She frowned in reluctant admiration. Good grief, the man was even sexier than she remembered. She stared openly as he reached over to retrieve a magazine from a rack across from his chair. His thighs were muscular and his rear lean and tight under his trousers. Mercy.

  He caught her staring.

  His answering honeyed smile was designed to melt the heart of every female in the room. It was also so full of male smugness Katarina wanted to whisper in his ear that there was a rip in his pants, and then sit back and watch him squirm. Just the thought made her smirk. He looked down, quickly checking his clothing.

  Be nice to the man, Rini.

  She smiled sweetly and with a flourish deposited her sloppy pile of forms over his magazine. "I can't answer some of these questions."

  He straightened the stack slowly and meticulously. "Okay, darlin', I'll take a look."

  God, he was insufferable. "Oh, sugar, you are just so sweet to me." She batted her lashes.

  She could see a muscle work in his jaw, but otherwise his face betrayed nothing. He went back to the paperwork, and she felt a small sense of victory. She didn't want to be here. It was his fault that she was. He would pay if he chose to play games with her.

  A moment later, a nurse appeared. "Ms. Herelius?"

  Before she could push herself off the chair, Lonetree rose and took her arm, helping her to her feet. "Darlin'."

  She yanked her elbow from his hand and walked with chin high through the inner door, which he held open, and followed the nurse into the exam room. He sauntered in after her and leaned against the wall behind the exam table.

  Katarina looked at him, shocked. "Surely you don't intend to stay?"

  "You agreed." He flashed that smug smile again.

  She'd throttle him. "A gentleman would never…"

  His eyebrow quirked. "I'm sure that's not the word you would have used two minutes ago to describe me. I think I prefer the other."

  "Bastard," she obliged.

  Despite his answering grin, she saw a darkness pass through his eyes. "Since the day I was born." He fingered the paper gown lying on the table. "But I'll be a nice guy and turn my back if it starts getting embarrassing."

  Consternation and panic fought in her stomach as she imagined sitting in that paper gown in front of the despicable rogue. Or worse.

  "Embarrassing for me, that is," he added.

  She gave him a withering look as the nurse sailed into the room. The stout woman looked Lonetree up and down with an imperious expressed
and asked, "Will the father be staying?"

  He winked at the nurse. "She keeps telling me I'm not the father, but I'm staying anyway."

  "Harrumph." She swept the gown from the table. "You won't be needing this today, Ms. Herelius. The doctor will just be doing a tummy check and listening to the heart. She'll decide about a sonogram during the exam."

  Katarina let out a whoosh of breath. There was a God.

  When Dr. Morris came in, she flipped through the chart that had come from UCLA. Lonetree wandered over to the window. "I trust it won't be a problem if I stay."

  Apparently he had spoken with her about the situation. "That depends on you, Mr. Lonetree. If you make Ms. Herelius uncomfortable, you're history."

  He turned and assumed his most professional manner. "Contrary to popular opinion, Doctor, I'm not here to be obnoxious. My only purpose is to monitor the baby's progress. I've no intention of making Ms. Herelius uncomfortable."

  Dr. Morris tilted her head at Katarina. "Ms. Herelius?"

  She looked first at Lonetree, then the doctor, and sighed. "It's okay. As long as it's just a tummy check."

  She swallowed her surprise when the exam began and he turned to face the window, talking to the doctor over his shoulder, interjecting questions about what was normal and how Rini was doing. He asked questions she had never thought to ask and, in the end, she learned things she would never have known if he hadn't been there.

  "Well, everything looks good," Dr. Morris finally declared. "But your ankles are swollen. You haven't been getting enough rest, have you? I want you to promise to take it easy. Put your feet up several hours a day."

  "I had finals at UCLA this past week. But classes are over until January. I promise to do my reading on the couch."

  Hands in pockets, Lonetree leaned against the windowsill, listening. He finally came back to her side when Dr. Morris pulled out the Doppler monitor and amplified the baby's heartbeat.

  Astonishment flashed across his face when they heard the first tiny beats. Katarina watched as astonishment was replaced by wonder, and then awe—his reaction much as her own had been the first time she'd heard her baby's heartbeat. Cole looked like a kid who'd just seen Santa Claus drop onto the fireplace grate.

  His gaze met hers over the hand-held monitor and he smiled. If the Doppler had been monitoring her own heart just then, it surely would have registered several skipped beats during those seconds his eyes held hers.

  "That's amazing," he said quietly.

  "Well, Mr. Lonetree, if a simple heartbeat can send you into shock, hang on to your socks, because you ain't seen nothin' yet." Dr. Morris grinned at the two of them. "How about a sonogram, kids?"

  Katarina laughed. "That would be great!"

  Cole's smile faltered. "There's nothing wrong, is there?"

  The doctor shook her head. "No, no. The clinic did one a few months ago, but I'd like to do another. Just to check things out in there."

  He grasped his tie and rubbed it distractedly, giving a nervous laugh. "The wonders of modern science."

  Dr. Morris wheeled a formidable looking array of equipment over to the foot of the exam table and squirted a huge dollop of goo on Katarina's bare stomach, spreading it around. As she pressed a palm-size scanner over the baby, the TV screen before them sprang to life. As usual, the image on the screen looked more like a space alien than a baby, but after a moment, the wiggling, disjointed shapes took on the familiar cherublike form. Katarina murmured, "Ooh," when she finally made out the baby. At that same second, Cole sat down on the examination table just below her shoulder, gazing raptly at the monitor.

  "Unbelievable," he murmured over and over between the doctor's explanations and descriptions of what they were seeing.

  "Okay, you want to know the sex?"

  Katarina stared at the doctor, then glanced at Cole.

  He said, "I do. But it's your call."

  She swallowed. Was he actually giving her a choice? She was tempted to say no, just to be contrary. But the expression on his face was so oddly full of hope, so like a little boy pleading with his mother for the puppy in the pet shop window, that she couldn't make herself do it.

  Besides, she wanted to know, too. She wanted to know everything she could about the precious life inside her. She gave him a tentative smile. "All right. Let's go for it."

  He grinned and she nearly fell off the table when he grabbed her hand and turned back to the screen. "Okay, Doc, work your magic." When the appropriate portion of the baby's anatomy came into focus, they all giggled. "Holy moly."

  "Looks like a very healthy little boy."

  Everyone laughed. Katarina was ecstatic. "A boy! It's a boy!"

  Cole looked at her, emotion evident in his expression. His face lit up from within, radiating profound joy. "A son."

  Suddenly, he must have realized he was gripping her hand between both of his, for he dropped it and slid off the table. "Congratulations, Ms. Herelius."

  "Thank you. Either one would have been fine, of course, but it's exciting to know which it is."

  He nodded, fingered his tie again and moved to the window. "Yes."

  All at once a thought occurred to her. "I don't suppose you were hoping for a girl?"

  He turned to face her and took a deep breath, as if to bring himself back to the present after being lost in his own thoughts. "I'd like a son very much."

  Dr. Morris stood and handed Katarina a form and the pictures from the sonogram. "I'll let you two continue this discussion on your own." She helped her up and gave her a towel. "Take it easy, now, and keep those feet up. See you next week." Then she was gone.

  Katarina looked at the towel in her hand and then at her stomach. "Yuck." She wiped it off as well as she could, then set the towel aside. A shadow fell across her lap and she glanced up.

  "You missed a spot." Cole took up the towel and reached out to her belly, but stopped just shy of touching skin.

  His gaze locked with hers, and a jolt of response surged through her. She was suddenly acutely conscious of sitting with her entire midriff intimately exposed to his eyes. A coil of sexual awareness tightened around her body like a spring, squeezing to life pains that had lain dormant for almost seven months. And a lifetime, before that.

  A whip of panic cut across her. This was the last way she wanted to be reacting to this man. "I can—"

  Too late! He was already gently stroking the side of her belly with the towel. His hand, large and brown against the white towel and her pale skin, caressed her softly, slowly. As she watched, an elemental recognition coursed through every molecule of her body, making her agonizingly aware that this man had touched her before, more intimately than anyone in her whole life.

  Suddenly it was difficult to breathe.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  « ^ »

  Katarina looked up into Cole's eyes, her mind a whirlpool of emotion.

  This was nuts. She didn't want this man. God help her, she couldn't! Not after… It was only…

  The searing intensity of his scrutiny short-circuited her brain. Terrified of her own reaction, she watched his face come closer and closer—knowing she should under no circumstances let him kiss her.

  Knowing she would anyway.

  Helpless to resist, she saw her pride and common sense sacrificed on the altar of her reckless attraction to this man, and abandoned herself to the moment. She tilted her face up to his and let her lashes flutter to her cheeks. When their lips finally met, it was all she could do to keep from melting into a puddle at the tenderness with which his mouth caressed hers. He was everything she remembered, and more. Much more.

  Against strict orders, her disobedient arms slid around his neck. A moan rumbled in his chest like the prelude to an earthquake. He furrowed his fingers in her hair and held her head captive. For a split second the pressure of his lips increased, then he tore away, burying his face in her hair.

  "Why, honey?" he asked in a strangled voice. "Why did you leave me?" />
  She dug her nails into his shoulders. How could he ask such a question?

  Torn and suddenly miserable, she found her mind replaying those last horrible minutes at the powwow when she had learned, to her everlasting shame and humiliation, that he was no different than David. To the moment he'd cruelly jerked her out of her infernal naiveté.

  You'll meet me at the dance circle, won't you?

  Try and keep me away.

  When the warrior had left for his hoop dance demonstration, Katarina had followed a few minutes later. She'd approached the circle just as the dance was ending, and sank down on one of the hay bales to wait for him. As she watched, he was again besieged by well-wishers, as he had been the first time she'd seen him dance.

  A young woman put her arms around him and gave him a hug. Katarina frowned. Well, maybe she was his sister, she reasoned, trying desperately not to be jealous when he bent his mouth to her ear and whispered something that made the woman squeal and give him another hug. As she watched their embrace, Katarina fought the devastating images that flooded her mind-images of the first time she had caught David in the arms of one of his lovers.

  No, she'd prayed silently. Please no.

  A whole group of young women surrounded the warrior, touching him, flirting with him and whispering things in his ear. Then another woman approached him. This one was a little older, about Katarina's own age, a little more sophisticated looking and a whole lot prettier. She draped her hands over his shoulders and gave him a long, nuzzling kiss. Oh, God.

  The beautiful fantasy Katarina had woven about the warrior shattered and the blood drained from her face. Her heart sank to her feet as the pretty woman spoke intimately with her lover, arm looped around his waist. Anger and humiliation had swamped Katarina as the woman drew a finger along his smiling jaw.

  Katarina jumped up from the hay bale. She refused to sit there and watch her own betrayal. She absolutely would not go through this again. She wouldn't risk losing her tenuous self-confidence again after fighting so hard to find it. How dumb would she have to be to stick around and be hurt by yet another man who didn't care enough for her to be faithful for even one day?