“Paper say Tsalagi put sign here, say yes to deal,” Jesse finished, then held up the contract again. He brought the paper to Standing Trees and presented it to the old man, who frowned with disbelief and frustration. He had been made to look a fool in front of all these people. Jesse saw his anger and tried to ease it. He spoke quietly so as not to upset anyone else.
“The brave heart of the great Standing Trees does not lie. It does not expect others to lie. These men have lied.”
Standing Trees studied him, the tough old man holding him securely with nothing but a heavily jowled look. His chin trembled slightly with old age, but the gaze didn’t wander. Finally he nodded.
“Tloo-da-tsì speaks clear as mountain water. This lie chills Tsalagi hearts.” He stood abruptly and dropped the paper to the ground. “Standing Trees will not sign.” The other chiefs followed suit after glancing quickly at the paper. And just like that, it was done.
As the Cherokee walked away, Jesse turned back to the panel. “I believe that concludes today’s business, gentlemen.” He nodded smugly at Thomas, whose own expression looked nothing short of murderous, then followed the Cherokee toward their horses.
It was a long ride back to the village, but Jesse felt good for most of the journey. He rode beside an expressionless Ahtlee, who had never been much of a talker to begin with. He spoke even less now, it seemed. Around them rode the others, some still digesting the truth of the day, others celebrating the loss they hadn’t suffered, due to Jesse’s revelation.
About an hour before they reached the village, Ahtlee spoke to him in slow, digestible Cherokee. “This day, Tloo-da-tsì, you grew to a man. You said words against your own people. You said words against my orders. You did something I told you not to do, but you made the better choice. I was proud.”
He was proud? Because Jesse’d disobeyed? Would Jesse ever understand these people? “It was the right thing to do,” he said.
Ahtlee agreed with a short grunt. “And you had courage, going against what I said.”
“I apologize for that,” Jesse muttered, not sure if that was the correct response. He looked straight ahead, between his horse’s ears, waiting for Ahtlee to get to the point. When Ahtlee started a conversation, he had a reason for it.
Ahtlee smiled gently. “Yes, it is brave to follow your heart when you know you are right and the path you are on is the wrong one. But for you that is easy.” He chuckled. It was a low, pleasant sound, like a dog’s playful growl. “This test was not difficult for a man like you, a man who should have my name: Does Not Bend. I thank you, Tloo-da-tsì, for what you did today, and for honouring my village with your loyalty.”
Jesse didn’t know what to say. An apology from Ahtlee and a compliment? He followed Ahtlee’s example and made a noncommittal grunt in reply.
“You have been in my village as my son for four changings of the moon. You have made my heart proud, and you have soothed the grieving which tore my soul. I thank you for that as well.”
Jesse didn’t even bother grunting this time. Just waited. Something was coming.
“You have earned my trust, Tloo-da-tsì. The village approves of you as well. When we return, you may decide if you wish to remain with us or return to the white man’s world.”
Jesse blinked. “I can leave?”
Ahtlee looked straight ahead, rocking gently with the horse’s uneven steps as she picked her way down a slope. “If that is your decision, you may go. You will always be a part of our family, no matter where you are.”
“I thought—”
“We hope you will stay.”
“But I thought . . .”
From the expression on Ahtlee’s face, he had no more to say on the subject. Then Jesse was glad his travel partner wasn’t talkative, because all of a sudden he had a lot of thinking to do.
PART 3
Adelaide
CHAPTER 24
Terror From Trust
Of course I knew they would give Jesse the choice of whether to stay or go. I suppose I could have told him that would eventually come, but for some reason I hadn’t. It was strange, because initially I couldn’t wait for him to leave, and then, well, then I hoped they would change their minds and not permit him to go. Then he wouldn’t have a choice. He couldn’t leave. He’d have to stay . . . with me.
I had always had a choice. I had chosen to stay with the Cherokee when Maggie married Andrew, when she moved into her beautiful home with him, near her new friends who had come all the way from Scotland. They were good people, and I had never felt even the slightest fear of those men, for some reason. Every one of them was large, gruff on the outside, intelligent within, and yet I’d never thought twice about being around them. They treated me like glass. As if I were their little sister. I could have been happy with them had I chosen to stay there. And I would have been kept safe.
But I hadn’t. I had chosen to stay here in the village, with people who lived with their ancestors forever perched on their shoulders like angels, people with a passion and dedication to their world, with an unselfish need to love one another with ferocious loyalty. With people who accepted me despite all my fears and oddities, people who taught, included, and understood me. These were the same people who wore practically nothing and shrieked like demons around a fire, singing primal, ancient songs that froze my blood every time I heard them. People who thought nothing of slitting an enemy’s gut open then rejoicing at his suffering.
As a result of my decision, I lived an uneasy life, not knowing where I belonged, not liking either option. Something had always been missing.
Then Jesse had come along, clearly not belonging either.
“You see?” he asked.
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening. Say it again?”
He closed his eyes, then opened them again. He frowned at me, frustrated. “How much didn’t you hear? I’ve been talking awhile now.”
“Since you told me about Ahtlee’s decision, and how you weren’t sure what to do.”
“Huh.”
We sat side by side on cold granite boulders, wrapped in an extra layer of deerskin. The breath of warm summer air had chilled to a brisk warning of what was coming, stirring greens into golds, shaking the first layer of loose, dead leaves from rustling branches. I’d led Jesse back to my favourite place atop the mountain, the place where I had first explained Jesse’s Cherokee name to him. Where Soquili had once told me about the beginning of the world. On our way up, the pathway had been slick with fallen leaves, rain-soaked, and rotting. Jesse caught my hand when I slipped, and I’d wanted both to cling to him and to run from him. What was I doing?
“So that’s all you heard.”
“Sorry. I . . . My mind was elsewhere.”
He rolled his eyes. “I see that. But . . . Could you help me out a bit? I need to understand. I mean, you’re so comfortable here with these people. Like this is how it’s meant to be for you. Obviously that’s not right. You’re white, in case you’d forgotten.” He gave me a wry grin and tugged a bit of my hair in illustration. “As white as they come.” He paused, and something in his eyes softened. He wasn’t angry at me anymore. But I felt bad. He had opened his heart to me, and I’d missed it.
“Tell me what you’re thinking. Why is it so hard? I thought you hated it here. Hated these people.”
He gave that a quick, dismissive shrug I’d come to know so well, looked doubtful. “I did. Sure I did. But you know everything’s changed. It’s been a real interesting time here. I feel . . .” He hesitated, frowning and scratching the pale blond hair where it curled above one ear. He had washed his hair that morning, I could tell, then let it dry with nothing more than a cursory run-through with his fingers. He never smeared in the bear fat that so many of the other men used, so he never carried that harsh tang with him. His hair was much longer than when he’d arrive
d, the gold waves licked his shoulders now, and he often tucked them behind his ears.
“I feel different from how I felt before.”
“I can tell,” I told him. “You’re not so angry anymore.”
He chuckled. “No? Maybe not. But I still have a temper, you should know. Boy, I was angry at that powwow. Seeing my old man there, it just brought back all that. I was rarin’ for a fight, is what I was.”
“Ahtlee said you were very controlled,” I replied. That wasn’t exactly what he had said, but close enough. Actually, Ahtlee had uncharacteristically taken me aside and told me he’d been proud of Jesse, of the way he’d held back when he clearly wanted to unleash his opinions and his frustration.
“Yeah, well. Anyway, I don’t know. I don’t think I could stay here forever, but I don’t know how I could ever go back to what was.”
I had no answers for him. How could I? I had none for myself.
It was still early afternoon, the sun still burned high overhead, but the autumn air was cool. A storm was coming, spotting across the sky in clouds that grew heavy with rain. The chill cut through my tunic, but Jesse was watching me. He saw my inadvertent shiver and stood to give me his shirt. In the moment when he looked down at me, blocking the light, my sad little mind transformed him into nothing but a black silhouette. A strong shadow cutting out the sun. The shape of a man looming over me, his body solid, real, and able to inflict so much damage. He pulled his shirt over his head and held it out. But for me, he had ceased to be Jesse. Blackness and strength and cold . . . fear and helplessness and pain . . . sweat streamed from my forehead and my breath was hard to catch. Jesse stepped out of the sun and squatted instantly beside me. I gasped and pulled away reflexively.
“Hey, what is it? One minute you’re fine, and the next you’re looking at me like I’m some kind of monster.”
I turned my head to the side, hating myself, as I always did when this kind of thing happened. No, it was more than that. I hated myself almost all the time. Hated my weakness, my ridiculous inability to control this panic. I would not cry. I would not. I was so tired of crying, and Jesse had to be getting tired of seeing it. His fingers were gentle on my cheek, and warm. I turned back toward him and tried to meet those golden eyes.
His voice was gentle. “Somebody hurt you bad, didn’t they?”
I sniffed but couldn’t look away. “I don’t remember.” That was partially true. I remembered wicked flashes of things I’d seen: my mother’s dead stare, Ruth’s blond curls rolling down her back as she was carried away . . . but the details were gone, hidden deep within me. I would never let them see the light of day again. I couldn’t.
“We gotta fix you, Adelaide. We gotta. You can’t just take off like a doe for no reason.”
“No,” I corrected him, my voice straining through the thickness in my throat. “You don’t have to worry about it. I’ll take care of myself. It’s got nothing to do with you. It’s my own problem.”
He frowned, looking puzzled. “But Adelaide, it does have something to do with me.”
“That’s sweet of you, Jesse, but it doesn’t. It’s my problem, and I’ll understand if you don’t want to be around me because of it. I’m . . . just having a little trouble. I guess I heal slow.”
He wouldn’t give up. “It ain’t sweet of me, Adelaide,” he said, shaking his head. “Seeing you like this makes me feel bad.” He frowned, chewing on his lower lip while he thought about what he wanted to say. “See, I’ve gotten to know you pretty well, I think. And I like being with you, even though I’m never sure if you want me anywhere near you. I have a feeling . . .” His expression hardened briefly, like he was thinking deeply, but he cleared it with a breath. “Whether it’s a good or a bad thing, I think you’re something I’m always gonna want to take care of. I don’t know, I . . .” he said quietly, then cleared his throat. “No.”
“What?”
“Sounds stupid.”
“I won’t know until you tell me.”
“Well, fact is, I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s gotten so I look for you all the time, and when I can’t see you, I’m too distracted to do much else. I want to make sure you’re safe all the time. But it’s more than that.” He looked at his feet, swallowed hard, and shook his head. Then he met my eyes again, his own intense with a kind of desperation. “Who am I trying to kid?” he almost whispered. “The thing is, Adelaide, I’ve fallen in love with you.”
His smile wavered, unsure, and the rain-tinged wind tossed the hair that fluttered at the sides of his face. But his eyes . . . the gold was almost hidden now, swallowed up by deep black circles of hope. He looked so young all of a sudden, his confidence and bravado replaced by the unreasonable trust of a child.
He loved me?
He heard my hesitation. I imagine its silence was ferociously loud to his ears. He held up his hands as if to show me they were empty. “And I understand that you’re scared,” he said. “I get that somewhere along the line someone didn’t exactly leave a great impression on you. But . . . I’d be different.”
He shifted from a squat until he was on both knees, his face on the same level as mine. But despite his closeness, to me he sounded far away, as if he spoke through cupped hands. All I could do was stare at his lips, watch them shape around his words. “I would be. You know I would. And we have a choice, the two of us. If you loved me, well, we could do what we wanted, right? We wouldn’t have to stay here—or we could, if that’s what you wanted, I guess. We could be on our own, though. We could—” He stopped, at a loss, his hands spread wide.
I stared at him, feeling the flush that had stolen my breath slowly die away.
“Adelaide?”
I blinked and forced my jaw to close.
“Have you got anything to say? Anything at all?” He chuckled nervously, running his fingers through his hair so the ends of one side stuck out like a wing. “Because if you don’t, well, I guess I’d understand that, too. I kind of just up and sprung this onto you without any lead.” He shook his head, marveling at his own error. “And that’s like taking a green mare and throwing a saddle right there on her back without any warning.”
Such an unexpected comment. I had to smile. “A green mare?”
Now it was his turn to blush, and a charming colour flooded his cheeks. “Well, no, that’s not exactly what I . . .”
As he blustered through his words, I tried to pay attention, but I was distracted, aware of a stirring within me. As if something rose to the surface. It was just an emotional reaction, but it was so real I imagine I could have seen it if I’d had no skin. A bubble grew from deep in my belly, warm and soft and pushing against the walls of my body. It pumped up, spreading through my arms and hands and heart and veins, tingling like blood.
Hope. That’s what it was. Hope.
“Jesse?”
“Yeah?”
A half smile played at the corner of my mouth, the start of a grin I didn’t want to let out—not just yet. “I have something to tell you. It’s kind of a funny thing.”
He frowned and nodded, dropping his hands to his sides. “I’m listening.” He didn’t have to tell me that. His focus was intense, centred on me and me alone. No one else on earth existed but him and me, and suddenly that didn’t bother me at all.
“The Cherokee have plans for us.”
Concern creased his brow further. “What?”
Oh, he was going to be surprised. What would he do? All I could hope was that he didn’t get angry and storm off like I’d seen him do. I swallowed. “I never mentioned this, because I didn’t know what you’d say, and I had kind of hoped I wouldn’t have to for a while, but now I think that if I don’t, well, things might just get even more complicated. It seems like the right time to let you in on this, except I don’t know if—”
“Adelaide?”
“I was supposed to marry W
ahyaw,” I blurted, watching his expression, which didn’t change. “So when you came to the village in his place, they told me I would marry you.”
He tilted his head, as if he hadn’t quite heard me right. “You would . . .” Without changing expression at all, he scratched his jaw. “Huh. And so . . . You . . . Sorry. Tell me again? Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“How could I? You and I are both so lost most of the time—”
He stiffened. “I ain’t lost. I’m just still deciding.”
“Oh. All right. Well, I’m lost. And I lose myself even further when I dream, and I didn’t want to start something that might hurt all over again.”
“Huh.” He looked away from me, gazing into the forest. When he looked back, his smile was lit with humour, and he was so, so beautiful.
“So I didn’t even need to ask you. It’s already been decided.”
I shook my head. “I told them I wasn’t going to follow that tradition, and so far, they’ve left me alone—other than the pestering, that is.”
His grin grew, and it was contagious. He laughed out loud, startling a resting crow overhead, who fluffed shiny black wings, then glared down at him. I’d never seen him like this before, and the sheer energy of his happiness made me dizzy. He leaned forward, cupping my cheeks in his warm palms. My skin buzzed, and my heart thundered so that my pulse tripped through my lips and fingers. I was afraid, I was excited, I was confused. And I think I was ready. He dropped his hands to my waist and brought his face to mine, then closed those golden eyes just before I closed mine.
His lips were warm and soft and not afraid. I wanted that so much, to be able to carry confidence like that, to own it, to share it like he did. I tried, putting my hands on his bristled face and pulling his lips harder against my own. That fed whatever he was craving, and I felt a jolt of celebration, knowing I’d done something right, even if it was something that terrified me to my core. Or maybe it was because of that. I sensed his energy building, racing through him, and I longed to be a part of that.
Somewhere to Dream (Berkley Sensation) Page 16