He swallowed hard, looking down. “I...thank you. I needed to hear that today,” he said huskily.
She reached for his hand, and he gripped her fingers convulsively.
“That dream has never left you, has it?” she said.
He shrugged. “I guess it never has.”
“Then do something about it.”
He looked up at her, astonished. “Like what? I’m thirty-two years old, for Christ’s sake.”
“A great age, to be sure,” Jennifer responded dryly. “I’m certain that some school would take you. You’re famous, Lee. Think of the boost to the reputation of the school. And you told me your grades were good.”
He waved his hand, dismissing the notion. “That was another life. I could never live like a student again. I would have to take entrance exams, compete against kids fresh out of college.”
“I didn’t say it would be easy,” Jennifer said. “Of course, if you’re afraid to try...”
That comment produced the desired result. “That’s not the issue!” Lee said fiercely. “And I wouldn’t want any special privileges, either.”
She blinked at him.
“If I were going to attempt it, which I’m not,” he said pointedly. “And I don’t want to discuss it any further.”
“Certainly, your majesty.”
“Don’t get sarcastic, Jenny. It doesn’t become you.” He changed the subject. “I have to go to New York on Thursday.”
“That’s nice.”
“Not very. The place depresses me. It lacks the ambiance one sees in the perfume commercials. It always seems to be filled with heroin addicts with permanent head colds, and coke freaks with permanent nosebleeds.”
“Oh, come on. It isn’t that bad.”
“No? You ever walked through the Bowery on a Saturday night in summer?”
“I can’t say that I have.”
“Looks like the last act of Hamlet. Bodies everywhere.”
Jennifer laughed. “I’d have guessed that your experiences there were limited to lunches at Elaine’s and nights with the in-crowd at the best clubs.”
“You’d be wrong,” he said shortly, in a voice which did not encourage her to ask questions.
He glanced at his watch. “It’s late, or very early. I should go.”
Jennifer said nothing. She didn’t want him to leave, but how could she risk another scene?
He got up and reached for his jacket. She followed him to the door.
“Thanks for listening,” he said.
“Thanks for talking,” she whispered.
Lee stood looking down at her. He reached out to smooth her hair back from her face. His fingers trailed across her brow to her cheek. Unable to stop herself, Jennifer turned her head and kissed his palm.
He froze.
“Don’t go,” she murmured. “Don’t go.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said firmly. He dropped his jacket on a chair and picked her up as if she were weightless, walking to the sofa in front of the fire. He sat upon it with her still in his arms.
Jennifer clung to him, her arms about his neck. His eyes, heavy lidded, thickly lashed, gazed down at her, lambent. They closed slowly as his mouth met hers.
His kiss was forceful, demanding, right from the start. He was sure, this time, that she would not stop him.
She could not have done so if she’d tried. Jennifer was so in love with him that one night together was preferable to a lifetime of wondering what might have been. She knew the chance she was taking, but it no longer mattered. The only thing in the world was this man, and this moment.
The feel of his hands on her body was the strongest erotic stimulant she had ever known. Jennifer could not get enough of him; her own aggression surprised her and aroused Lee. She tore her lips from his and pressed them to his throat, slipping her hands inside his clothes. He groaned and shifted her weight on his lap, pulling her closer.
Jennifer unbuttoned his shirt with trembling fingers, and he shrugged it off, letting it fall to the floor.
His skin was smooth, perfect, golden bronze. He half lay against the cushions, head thrown back, eyes closed, as she kissed and caressed him, stroking the hard, muscular arms and shoulders, rasping his flat dark nipples with her tongue.
It was not enough. Her hands strayed below his waist, and his breath hissed through his teeth. He moved to get up, to undress. Besotted, she hung on him, unable to bear the loss of contact.
He gently put her hands away, and quickly shed the rest of his clothes. Jennifer sat, drugged, until he returned in seconds, to disrobe her like a doll. As he removed each garment, he mouthed the part of her body he had uncovered. She put her fist in her mouth to prevent crying out, and he pulled it back, kissing the curled fingers. “I want to hear,” he whispered.
When she was naked, he scooped her up in his arms again and carried her to the hearth rug before the fire. He dropped beside her.
“Please,” she whimpered. “Please.”
“Anything,” he murmured, running his palm over her full breasts, her flat belly, absorbing the beauty of her body.
“Love me. Now.”
He crushed her to him. “I will,” he groaned. “I do.”
He stroked her thighs, and they opened to receive him. She gazed in mute adoration at his face above hers, his lower lip caught between his teeth in a spasm of pleasure as he entered her. They both gasped aloud with the sensation.
Jennifer clutched him, burying her face against his shoulder as he moved within her. Tears stung behind her lids and ached unshed in her throat. She must not cry. She wanted to remember everything. Everything.
She was certain that she would.
* * * *
The cold woke Jennifer a few hours later. The fire had died, and the room become chilly. A few fading embers still glowed on the hearth, but they gave little heat.
Lee slept face down, one arm thrown across her, a long muscular leg entwined with hers. She slipped away from him, and he stirred with the movement Jennifer went to the hall closet to get a robe, and when she returned, he was sitting up, looking at her.
She felt a deep flush creep up her neck. What did he think of her? What did she think of herself? She had never been so brazen. He probably thought...she didn’t want to think.
To cover her embarrassment and confusion, she grabbed a poker and stirred the fire.
“Let me do that,” he said, adding logs from the storage bin in the wall. Soon the blaze was roaring again.
He reclined once more on the rug, looking like an Inca prince with his sleek, strong limbs, carved features, and midnight hair. He reached up for her with one hand and drew her down to him.
“What’s this?” he asked, fingering her housecoat.
“I was cold.”
“Take if off,” he said huskily. “I’ll make you warm.”
She obeyed and closed her eyes, letting herself melt into him. “We should move to the bedroom,” she said. “You won’t get any rest.”
“I’m not interested in rest,” he said huskily. “I’m fine right here.”
He propped himself on one elbow and gazed down at her, tracing her features with a blunt forefinger. Then he bent to place a kiss on the tip of her nose before he moved his mouth lower, seeking her lips with his.
The cycle began again, as headlong and as powerful as before. All her concerns went out of her mind. She would worry about them later.
It was dawn before they slept—the deep, exhausted sleep of satiety.
Chapter 7
Jennifer woke first in the morning and showered while Lee was still asleep. She dressed in jeans and a blouse and walked past Lee’s prone form on the way through the hall to the kitchen. He lay sprawled on the hearth rug, the arm which had claimed her so possessively during the night still flung out at his side. The sight of him filled her with yearning tenderness, and she could have stood there, watching him, all day. But she deliberately moved on, making coffee as quietly as possible.
A kiss on the back of her neck told her that Lee was standing behind her. As usual, she had not heard his approach. She set down the box of filters she was holding and turned to face him.
He was bare chested and barefoot, clad only in the black formal pants he had worn to the reception. His hair was still mussed and his eyes heavy from the night, making him look boyish and vulnerable, but never more attractive. Jennifer had to fight to keep from embracing him.
He embraced her instead, drawing her against his chest. The feel of his silky skin, the enclosing warmth of his muscular arms, sent her spinning into the now familiar vortex of desire. She resisted it, evading his attempt to kiss her.
Feeling her reluctance, Lee held her away from him, searching her face. His unasked question hung between them, demanding an answer.
Jennifer dropped her eyes from his. “I’m afraid, Lee. This is all too much, ever since we met, the constant pull, and now last night...” She broke off, unable to articulate further, finally repeating, “I’m afraid.”
She half expected him to ask what there was to fear, or otherwise dismiss her concern. But he surprised her, releasing her and looking away. She saw him draw a slow, careful breath.
“And you think I’m not?” he said quietly.
His reply produced a mixed reaction in Jennifer. She felt a surge of joy at the knowledge that he was apparently taking their relationship as seriously as she was. She would have been devastated by any light treatment on his part of what was so important to her. But at the same time, she felt something like despair. He couldn’t guide her out of these troubled waters; he was drowning, too.
Jennifer studied his strong profile, as sharp and as clean as any etched on a coin, and said softly, “I don’t do this, Lee, and I’m getting in too deep. I can’t help it. I’m not much for one-night stands.”
He raised his eyes to her face. “I know that,” he said seriously. “Don’t you think I know that?”
Jennifer nodded, relieved. “But where does that leave us?” she asked. “What’s the sense in torturing ourselves with samples of what we can’t have on a permanent basis? You’ve already told me how you feel about your sister, and I can’t be a party to the sort of betrayal you think she has made of her background and her people. I know you don’t want that, and if you got involved with me you’d wind up hating yourself in the end.”
He said nothing.
Jennifer had almost hoped that he would protest, but she saw now that he wasn’t going to. She could never affect his deepest beliefs; they were strongly held, rooted in his soul. There was an inner core of mysticism in him, which she had glimpsed while he talked to the children that afternoon, born of an ancient way of life as foreign to her as the pyramids of Egypt That will, and that difference, could never be possessed. She loved him and respected him for it, but knew that no matter how much he wanted her, he couldn’t change.
“We’re just wrong for each other, and it’s nobody’s fault. Your heritage is very important to you, and you need someone who understands it and can share it. You’ll always be afraid I’ll turn you into one of those imitation WASPs you despise, make you forget who you are. And I’ve been burned once, I’m gun-shy, too. Let’s call it quits now, before we hurt each other.” Jennifer said all this calmly, without betraying the inner turmoil she felt, which increased with each word.
He still didn’t answer.
“Say something, Lee.”
He lifted one shoulder. “What can I say? You’ve said it all.”
So that was to be it, then. Lee left the room and returned wearing his ruffled shirt, unbuttoned to the waist, and carrying his jacket draped over his shoulder, hooked by one index finger. He cupped her chin in his free hand, looking at her as if he might never see her again.
“That is such a sweet face,” he said, and kissed her gently on the mouth.
“Thank you for last night,” he said. “I won’t forget it.”
He was terribly close to saying final things, and Jennifer held her breath. But he merely brushed his lips across her brow, and slipped quietly out the door.
Jennifer stood with her eyes closed, still feeling his touch on her skin. She’d handled it well, behaved reasonably and with great maturity. But that knowledge did not ease the pain she had masked so expertly for Lee’s benefit.
She still wanted him desperately and didn’t know what to do about it.
* * * *
Jennifer spent the morning in a state of suspended animation, going through the motions of doing laundry and dusting furniture like an automaton. When the phone rang around lunchtime, her heart stopped for a second, but then she knew it wouldn’t be Lee.
It was Marilyn. They exchanged news and small talk for a little while, and then Marilyn said, in that gently probing way she had, “Something’s wrong, Jen. What is it?”
Jennifer bluffed around for a while, but didn’t fool Marilyn for a minute. She finally blurted out that Lee had spent the night with her.
There was a long pause at the other end of the line. Then Marilyn said in crisp, businesslike tones, “I’ll be right over.”
Jennifer heard the click of disconnection before she could protest.
* * * *
Marilyn arrived to find Jennifer in the middle of cleaning out her drawers, and items of clothing and other miscellany were strewn about the bedroom in untidy piles. She surveyed the chaos and shook her head.
“Trying to work off our frustrations, are we?”
“Failing,” Jennifer responded, tossing a mateless sock into a laundry basket with others of its kind. She looked up. “Where’s Jeff?”
“With a sitter,” Marilyn answered. “I thought we should conduct this conversation without interruption.” She looked around. “Come out to the living room. You’re doing more harm than good in here anyway.”
Jennifer got up off her knees and followed Marilyn into the other room. Marilyn plopped into a chair and put her feet up on the coffee table.
“Okay, sweetie. Give.”
Jennifer recounted everything that had happened since the morning of the previous day, including the conversation she and Lee had had before he left Marilyn listened, interrupting only with an occasional pertinent question or brief comment When Jennifer was all talked out, Marilyn leaned forward and peered at her owlishly.
“Is that it?”
Jennifer nodded.
“So. As I understand it, the problem is that he feels a relationship with you would go against his whole background and way of life. Has he said this?”
Jennifer made a frustrated gesture. “He doesn’t have to say it, I know him, I know what he thinks. He would really like to go back and work on the reservation in Montana, and I’d be totally out of place there. In some small, atavistic part of his mind, the part that remembers things it has never seen, I will always be esumissa, a white woman, the enemy.”
“Jennifer, that’s absurd,” Marilyn said gently.
“Is it? The Blackfeet hated whiles, wouldn’t trade with them, never took white captives. I’ve been reading about them.”
“You’re talking about the attitudes of one hundred and fifty years ago!” Marilyn said.
“So what? If you were in his position, would you forget? What was done, and who did it?”
“You didn’t do it!” Marilyn almost shouted. “When the Indians were being exterminated your ancestors were up to their necks in some peat bog, as poor and as persecuted as his!”
Jennifer shook her head. “That doesn’t matter. He looks at me, and sees somebody who’ll want him to turn his back on what he is. You should have seen his face when he was talking about his sister, about the imitation WASPs. The contempt, the bitterness in his voice. He talked about the marriages he’s seen between Indians and non-Indians in which the Indian always gives up his past and adopts his spouse’s culture.”
“He may not have been saying that for your benefit.”
“I was the only one there, Marilyn,” Jennifer said dryly
.
“Well, did you tell him you’d never ask him to do that?”
Marilyn’s obtuseness was getting on Jennifer’s nerves. “Of course I’d never ask him to do that. I wouldn’t have to. It’s a subtle process of erosion of spirit, and only one of his own people could prevent that from happening.” She snorted. “And just by the merest chance, one of them has shown up, on cue, to drive the big bad bogeywoman away.” Jennifer told Marilyn about Dawn, and her past relationship with Lee.
“But you’re not sure anything is going on between them.”
“No, I’m not. But I noticed something at his house that only half registered at the time, and the more I think about it, the surer I am that Dawn is staying with Lee.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, when I was there I passed this sort of guest room that he has, and there were bags on the floor, and personal items about, as if someone were occupying it And I think I know who that someone is.”
Marilyn waved her hand in the air. “That doesn’t prove anything. You said she was an old friend. If he has the room, why shouldn’t she stay there?”
“I know, I know. But the idea of it doesn’t make me too happy.”
Marilyn pulled at her lower lip thoughtfully. “Has it occurred to you that he might be using this Dawn as a shield, retreating to the familiar in defense against his feelings for you?”
Jennifer rubbed her forehead distractedly. “Even if that’s true, how does it help me? I don’t want to be someone he has to erect barriers against for fear of losing his identity. And I’ll tell you something else. Even if I could transform myself into a full-blooded Siksikai, I wouldn’t do it I have my pride, too. If he can’t take me as I am, and accept me for what I am, then he has no real regard for me anyway.”
Marilyn smiled. “Spoken like Seamus Gardiner’s daughter.”
“Up the rebels,” Jennifer responded, and they both laughed.
Marilyn glanced at the clock on the wall. “I’ve got to go, I was only able to get Barbara to stay with Jeff for a couple of hours.” She regarded Jennifer closely. “Are you going to be all right?”
Native Affairs Page 39