I want to show you the spring thaw in the high mountains, he thought. I’d like to take you where the rivers teem with beaver and the deer are tame enough to creep close enough to touch them. I’d love you to see the waves of buffalo thundering over the prairie, herds that take three days and nights to pass.
Leaving her would be like leaving his right arm. When they parted, he’d never be the same. He’d not find another woman like her.
Her green eyes sparkled in the firelight. “You’re right, Hunt,” she teased. “You were more than wonderful—you were magnificent.”
“Mmmm, better.” He pulled her down and kissed her lips. “You have the nicest breasts.”
Pink ovals appeared on her cheeks. “I always thought they were too small.”
He caressed her nipple with the pad of his thumb, and the rosy bud hardened under his touch. “Perfect,” he murmured. “Like the rest of you.”
“The Seneca said my eyes weren’t human, that only the big cats had—”
He laughed. “They do look a little like a mountain lion’s eyes, but they’re still beautiful.”
“I don’t believe you, but I like to hear you say it.” She glanced toward the doorway. “Hunt, it’s still broad daylight. Don’t you think someone might come in?”
He sat up and kissed her love-swollen lips. “No. Hear the drums; the social dancing’s started. No one will go back to his wigwam ... least of all Counts His Scalps.”
Dismayed, her eyes widened. “Counts His Scalps? The shaman? This is his wigwam?”
Hunt chuckled. “Yes, and yes. He’s a visiting shaman, a very important man, but also a vain one. These are his quarters ... and mine, while I’m here. But you needn’t worry about Counts or anyone else. Badger won’t let anyone in.”
“You planned this,” she accused, but the merry look in her gaze told him that she was pleased. He felt familiar stirrings in his groin. “Admit it,” she said.
“I wish I had.” He rolled onto his side and slid an arm under her. “You are a difficult woman, Elizabeth Fleming.” He cupped her breast gently.
“I’m not.” Her expression grew serious. “At least I don’t mean to be.”
He sighed, lazily tracing the outline of her aureole with his forefinger until her nipple hardened. “I don’t suppose you can help it any more than a bee can help carrying pollen from flower to flower.”
Her mouth curved into a smile. “You do say the strangest things.”
“Woman, you may have a troublesome disposition, but you also have lips made for kissing.”
She closed her eyes and offered her lips. He couldn’t resist the invitation. From lips, it seemed only natural to taste her sweet breasts. After that ... he let his fingers stray to caress other mysteries.
“You are insatiable,” she whispered as he stroked the bright thatch of curling hair at the apex of her thighs.
“Am I?” He placed her hand on his reawakening rod, then sighed with pleasure as she began to stroke it with feather-light fingers. “Don’t stop,” he urged, then he drew her nipple between his lips and suckled.
“Hunt.”
He moved his head and nuzzled her other breast, teasing her until she lifted it to his seeking mouth. Again his passion grew until the throbbing in his organ became a torture. But this time, he’d not hurry; this time, he intended to make a memory for them both to dream on.
Slowly, they explored each others’ bodies, delighting in the texture of hair ... the curve of a back. Her bottom was softly rounded, her legs long and shapely, her feet highly arched.
“I thought you loathed me,” he whispered between kisses.
“I thought I did too.” Her eyes were like brilliant pools of green water, luminous and everchanging.
He swallowed against the constriction in his throat. If a man was the type to settle down with one woman, Elizabeth might be that woman, he thought, but when he spoke, it was of what lay before them. “I can’t promise you what will happen to us in Seneca territory,” he said, “but this I will promise. If I live, I’ll find your boy and bring you both safe away from the Seneca. And after that...” After that we might find a way to make a life ... the three of us. “After that—”
“I don’t want to talk about what might happen afterward,” she said firmly. “I don’t want to think or talk about anything except now.”
“I just wanted to say—”
She pressed two fingertips over his mouth. “No, don’t spoil it for me,” she begged. She rolled over until she laid atop him and let her fingers tease his nipples while her long, naked legs pressed against his shaft. He could feel the heat of her, and she gazed at him through eyes heavy-lidded with passion.
Her words stung him, but he choked back what he meant to say and concentrated on the sensation of her silken body next to his.
“It was never like this for me,” she said. “Never.” She inclined her head so that her heavy mane of thick red hair spilled provocatively across his face and chest.
“Or for me,” he admitted.
She flashed him a heartfelt smile.
An idea came to him. “How well can you ride a horse?” he asked her.
She giggled softly. “Not very well,” she whispered, then began to trace a two-inch-long triangular scar on his chest with one finger. “How did you get this?” she asked. “You have two of them, just alike.” She leaned down and flicked his taut skin with her warm, wet tongue, and bolts of fire shot through his veins.
He let his hand slip from the small of her back, down over her rounded hip to tease the triangle of soft red curls above her damp cleft. “A gift of the sun,” he said. “Among the Cheyenne, a man cannot claim to be a warrior unless he proves his courage in the great Sun Dance.”
“These scars are deep. I don’t understand how dancing ...”
“You don’t want to know,” he said softly.
“Yes, I do.”
He shook his head. “Later, darling, I’ll tell you later.”
“It must have been very painful.”
“The Sun Dance is not about pain—it’s about sacrifice, about faith in something greater than yourself.” He looked into her eyes. “It changes you forever, the Sun Dance.” He took a breath and let it out slowly. “It’s part of me, my secret name, bestowed on me by a Cheyenne holy man.”
She waited, trembling, trust shining in her eyes. And he told her what he had never told another, what had been secret between him and his creator. “The shaman named me Sundancer.”
“But you never use that name.”
He kissed her mouth, drinking of her sweetness. “That’s part of the power,” he murmured. “That it’s secret.”
She sighed. “But you told me.”
He kissed her again. “Yes, I told you,” he whispered when they separated again for breath.
“I’ll treasure your secret,” she promised. She kissed the scars on his chest again.
He stroked her inner leg and she moaned and pressed against him. “Elizabeth,” he whispered, and thrust a finger gently inside her. “Shall I kiss the flower?” he asked.
“Shall I kiss the stem?” she dared. Before he could answer, she slid lower and took him between her hands. Slowly, she leaned over him and touched her tongue to the swollen head of his organ. He groaned as she drew him between her lips.
Hunt closed his eyes and let the waves of white-hot sensation wash over him. And when the sea threatened to drown his last thread of self-control, he murmured, “Now, it’s your turn.”
Without speaking, she rolled onto her back and parted her legs. Her breathing was ragged, her muscles tense as he knelt between her knees and kissed the satiny skin along her inner thigh.
She whimpered and clutched his hair.
He groaned. The pleasure-pain of his throbbing erection was maddening, but he wanted to please her more than he wanted to please himself. He tasted the forbidden fruit ... found the ripe nubbin of flesh and laved it with his tongue.
“Oh,” she whimpered, f
linging her head wildly from side to side. “Oh, yes ... do it ... do it. Please!”
He was more than ready; it took every ounce of his willpower to keep from climaxing before he plunged into her.
Slowly he slid into her silken sheath. She arched her hips to take every inch of him, and he went in deeper. He watched her ... wanting to see the rapture on her face ... imprinting her red-gold image on his mind for all time. And when he finally felt her spasms of erotic pleasure, he drove deep one final time, releasing his own passion with an intensity he had never felt with any other woman.
Later, after they had kissed and cuddled and dozed, they washed with warm water from a kettle beside the hearth. Hunt found a bone comb beside Counts His Scalps’s sleeping place, and Elizabeth rearranged her hair. When she was finished, he used the comb to make his own hair decent, then tied it back in a single plait.
“You wear your locks long for a white man,” she observed as she straightened the end of his braid.
“Only my skin is white. An Indian warrior takes strength from his hair.”
“It seems to me that you switch back and forth from Indian to white when it pleases you. I thought it was forbidden for a warrior to be with a woman before leaving on a raid,” she teased. Her cheeks were as pink as ripening strawberries, and her face glowed with an inner light. She looked too beautiful to him to be real.
“It is forbidden.” He couldn’t stop remembering how it had been between them... how freely she’d given everything a woman can give and more.
“You broke the rule.”
He smiled at her. “With a vengeance.”
“Are you afraid I’ll bring you bad luck?”
He shrugged. “Can it get any worse? I’ve lost every ounce of common sense. Only a fool would try to steal Yellow Drum’s son and take a woman along when he made the attempt.”
Clouds of emotion swirled in her eyes, and an expression of vulnerability flickered over her face. “Then why are you doing it?”
“You’re a burr under my blanket.”
Her mood shifted, and the tension evaporated between them as she chuckled. “I’ve been called much worse.”
“With good reason?”
She tied the thongs on her moccasin. “I’m afraid so.”
The dog opened his eyes and rose to his feet. His ears pricked up and he made a low sound deep in his throat.
“Someone’s coming,” Hunt said.
He hated to go out, to break the spell they’d both been caught in. He’d come so close to asking her to be his wife, but she’d stopped him. What he’d said was true—she was a burr under his blanket, but she’d gotten deeper into him than he’d ever dreamed possible. He thought that sleeping with her again might weaken the spell she held over him, but it hadn’t happened. He wanted her as badly now as he had before—maybe worse. The truth was that he didn’t want her for an afternoon; he wanted her for the rest of his life.
For a brief moment, he allowed his gaze to focus on her vibrant features: her full, sensual lips, the high, well-defined cheekbones, and her mischievous eyes, framed with dark, full lashes. Her nose tilted up just a little; her chin was too stubborn for a woman.
Elizabeth’s fair skin was scattered with freckles, and one soft bird’s wing of a brow bore a tiny scar. He had seen a Crow woman whose heart-shaped face was flawless, a Blackfoot girl with a better figure, but he’d never known a female who tugged at his heart as Elizabeth Fleming did.
He sighed. Obviously, she wasn’t as taken with him as he had been with her. She didn’t want to let him speak of commitment.
Badger’s whine became a rumble. “Down, boy,” Hunt said. “It’s all right. We’re among friends here.”
But he knew better. It wasn’t all right. He and Elizabeth would have no more time to be alone and intimate. In the days to come, one or both of them might meet a sudden and violent death, and whatever he wanted to say to her would have to wait.
He still wanted to hold her safe and warm in his arms ... God, how he wanted that.
A familiar voice called his name in Algonquian from outside the entrance flap. “It’s Counts,” Hunt said to Elizabeth. “Come in.”
The shaman entered the dwelling, glanced at Elizabeth, then back to Hunt, and smiled knowingly. “Fire Talon looks for you,” he said.
“We’re coming,” Hunt replied. “We were just—”
“Yes,” Counts agreed. His sloe eyes narrowed. “Women are always trouble,” he said. “Necessary, but always trouble.”
“This one in particular,” Hunt said. He motioned to Elizabeth. “Fire Talon wants us,” he said in English.
She looked at the medicine man. “Will he tell?” she asked Hunt.
“He might. Counts is a complex man.”
“Thank you,” the shaman murmured in perfect English. “I’m glad to know you think so.”
Hunt felt his cheeks grow warm. “You do speak English,” he said.
“A wise man would be foolish if he didn’t,” Counts answered.
Hunt nodded and chuckled, more at his own error in underestimating the shaman than at what Counts had said. “And you are a wise man,” he agreed. He still hadn’t decided if Counts could be trusted or not. Fire Talon seemed to be his friend, but Fire Talon was another unknown.
Hunt exhaled softly. If he had a choice, he’d sooner put his faith in Talon, he decided, but on this mission, he knew he might not get that chance.
Outside, they found that a large group had gathered around the cleared space. Curious women, elders, and children were all talking excitedly. Fire Talon, dressed simply as always, waited. His oak-hewn features were painted for war, and he was heavily armed with hatchet, rifle, scalping knife, and pistol.
A drumbeat silenced the crowd. “This man calls a war party to go into the land of our old enemy, the Seneca, and bring back a stolen child,” Fire Talon called in a deep, commanding voice. He spoke first in his own tongue, then in English.
Elizabeth noticed Sweet Water in the group of women. A blanket covered her hair and most of her face, but her eyes were full of concern and fixed on her husband. A handsome boy of about twelve years stood beside her. The similarity of his features to Fire Talon’s made Elizabeth guess that this must be their son.
“These warriors go with us,” Fire Talon continued. He began to call out their names, and each man joined him amid cheers and shouts of encouragement from the crowd. After both Counts His Scalps and Hunt had left her side to enter the circle, Elizabeth moved to stand near Moccasin Flower.
“Fox comes,” Fire Talon announced.
An elaborately painted brave wearing yellow and blue face paint and a foxtail headdress leaped into the air, hurled his tomahawk at a post, and began a furious war dance to the accompanying accolades of the women and children. Other men from the war party joined in the chant and formed a serpentine line of dancers that wove around the post and central fire pit to the heated throb of drums.
Fire Talon raised a hand. When the warriors ceased their dance and all was still, he shouted a final name. “Scarlet Dawn.”
No one came forward to answer the summons.
The war chief made a great show of looking around, then announced the name again in Algonquian and once more in English. “Scarlet Dawn!”
People began to whisper to their neighbors. “Who is that?”
“This woman has not heard of him.”
“Who is he?”
“Scarlet Dawn!” Fire Talon called again in English. He strode across the dance ground toward the spot where Elizabeth and Moccasin Flower stood. “You,” he said, pointing to Elizabeth. “This warrior comes with us. Step forth, Scarlet Dawn, that you may be recognized.”
Elizabeth stared at him in confusion.
“Go,” Moccasin Flower whispered. “He means you.”
Fire Talon took her hand and led her to the center of the circle. “It is forbidden that a woman follow the war trail. Is it so?”
“Yes,” cried an old man.
&
nbsp; “It is so,” echoed a woman.
“Yet, women have walked that trail,” Fire Talon said.
“True,” Sweet Water answered. “Women have done this.”
“Strikes Her Basket!” shouted an ancient. “My grandmother, Strikes Her Basket, took two Mohawk scalps.”
“And Whistle in Twilight,” added another elderly council member. “Who has not heard of Whistle in Twilight’s deeds?”
Counts His Scalps moved to stand at Elizabeth’s side. “It has come to this medicine man in a dream,” he proclaimed. “A woman’s place is in the cornfield and in the wigwam—yet...” He paused dramatically, then spread his arms so that the fringes on his sleeves swept the ground. “Yet, our leader decided that this one—” he indicated Elizabeth—“must go.”
Fire Talon laid a hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. “It has come to the mighty shaman Counts His Scalps that there are times when a woman must act as a man.”
“And this is such a time,” Counts said, picking up his cue. “I proclaim that this is no longer a white woman; this is the Shawnee warrior Scarlet Dawn.”
“Whoo!” cried an old man. The villagers began to stamp their feet in approval.
“Scarlet Dawn, take this weapon,” Fire Talon said, drawing the pistol from his waist and handing it to Elizabeth. “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded yet,” he whispered to her with a wink. “From this night until the moon has traveled twice on its journey, you are no longer a woman,” he said for all to hear. “You are a man, and you are part of the raiding party. Do you agree to this?”
Stunned, Elizabeth looked at Hunt. He nodded. “Yes,” she stammered. “Yes, I understand.”
“Do you agree?” Fire Talon demanded sternly.
“I agree,” she answered.
“So, it is done,” he said. His eyes sought out the nearest woman in the crowd. “Take this warrior away,” he said. “Dress him in a man’s garments and make him ready. We leave for Seneca land at first light.”
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