Eye of the Tiger Lily

by Ann Yost

  Molly had pitied Sandra Tall Tree for her rough upbringing and she’d judged her for her behavior. Now she compared Sandra’s sins to her own. Was it worse to steal a man’s money or his sperm? What a no-brainer. Money could be replaced. Even infidelity could be forgiven.

  There was no way to make restitution on a stolen child.

  Suddenly, she couldn’t do it. It was no longer just her life that would be changed forever but that of a man who had done nothing to deserve this. She threw on a jacket and stepped out to her garden.

  The vision of the dying sun on the radiant leaves of the hardwoods in the forest behind her home stole her breath. She sat on her back stoop and watched the sun’s light move upward, spotlighting sections of the trees as if they were entertainers in a nightclub. When the sun finally reached the horizon only the crowns of the trees were still on fire.

  Already leaves were falling like flakes in a storm. In a few weeks they would cover the ground, the branches would be bare and maybe, if they were lucky, they’d get a week of Indian summer before the bitter cold set in for the season the ancient Abenakis called, “the moon that provides little food grudgingly.”

  Molly contemplated the months ahead. Would she spend another winter alone? It seemed likely. But what about the spring? Would it bring new life?

  She spoke to the ancients, Molly Mathilde, the peacemaker, Molly Ockett, the healer and Molly Spotted Elk, the lady who loved to dance. She asked them for strength to handle whatever lay ahead today, in the spring and in the distant future. She felt the curious warmth that always followed this exercise. She might be an orphan and a foster child but she was not alone. She had not been alone since she’d come to Blackbird Reservation. She sucked in a long breath.

  It was time.

  Moments later butterflies carousing in her stomach turned to circling buzzards as she waited for the test results. The box suggested a five-minute wait. She decided to give it seven and to use the extra time to make a phone call.

  “I took a pregnancy test,” she blurted into the receiver.

  “And?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Ah,” Muriel said. “I’ll be right over.”

  ****

  Cam got home late, exhausted from the drive but more particularly, from the emotions that had been jerked around as if he were a kite in the March sky. Ever since Molly had walked into the honeymoon suite he’d felt like an emotional punching bag. He realized now his heart had been encased in ice for a long time. Seeing Molly, being with her, had thawed it out. She’d made him vulnerable.

  He wasn’t sure he liked it.

  Cam stared into the bathroom mirror and noted the dark bristles on his jaw.

  What the hell was he going to do about the woman?

  He’d like to put his hands around her slender neck and squeeze. He’d like to settle her under him and thrust himself home. He’d like to hold her against his heart and tell her everything would be all right.

  Dammit.

  Cam clenched his fists as he realized he was dithering again. He hated to dither.

  In this case it was a useless exercise. Molly had stripped away his decade-long defenses and, as if she’d given him a magic kiss, she’d brought him to life. And to love. He was going to forgive her. He was going to get down on his knees and beg her to marry him. And it had nothing to do with the potential baby. It was the woman herself. His woman.

  The bathroom door opened without warning as it always did. Daisy climbed up onto the covered toilet seat as if it were her throne. Cam remembered the way Molly had burst in on him a week earlier. Apparently, bathroom privacy was a thing of the past. He grinned. It was a small price to pay. His daughter crossed her arms over her small chest like an irritated schoolteacher.

  “Daddy, Wilbur ‘n me need to know if we’re really gonna marry Miss Johnson.”

  He slapped some water and soap on his face and picked up the razor.

  “Why do you and Wilbur need to know?”

  “Cuz she would be our new mom. An’ Wilbur is gonna have to adjus.”

  “Adjust?”

  “That’s what Asia says.”

  “Well, the two of you might have to adjust but not to Miss Johnson. We aren’t marrying her.” He stroked the razor along his jaw. “I mean, I’m not marrying Miss Johnson. Or, more accurately, Miss Johnson isn’t marrying me.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged and pulled his mouth to one side to get a better angle on his right cheek. “We aren’t in love.”

  “Oh.” She was silent for a moment, apparently considering that development. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her nodding. Her yellow curls bounced against her soft cheeks. “Me and Wilbur are in love with Molly. Are you in love with Molly, too?”

  She sounded so hopeful, so wistful. Cam paused, his razor in the air.

  “Cause if you love Molly,” she said, encouragingly, “we can marry her, right, Daddy?”

  Moisture from the razor ran down his bare forearm. It tickled.

  “Daddy?”

  He stared at his small daughter. He wasn’t going to lie to her and, anyway, she deserved to know. She’d been motherless long enough.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “Yes?”

  He almost smiled at her attempt to pin him down. A successful attempt, as it turned out.

  “Yes,” he repeated. “If she’ll have me. We’ll marry Molly.”

  Daisy’s grin stretched across her small face. “She will. She loves me an’ Wilbur. I’ll go tell him now.”

  Cam hoped Daisy and Wilbur would be just as thrilled when the new baby re-drew the boundaries of their family circle next summer. He felt a warmth in his soul that had been missing a long, long time.

  ****

  Molly’s nerves were shredded. The stick rested on the bathroom sink where she’d left it. She and Muriel sat on opposite corners of her bed.

  “It’s been thirty-two minutes,” her mother said, finally. “That’s long enough. I’m going to take a look.”

  Molly closed her eyes and waited for her mother to emerge from the bathroom. A moment later Muriel stood before her holding the stick at arm’s length as if it were a wiggling snake. The woman’s normally open countenance was inscrutable.

  Molly waited for the words. It couldn’t have been more than a second or two but it seemed like a decade.

  “N’onon?”

  And then Muriel opened her mouth and the unthinkable happened.

  “I’m sorry, nizwia.”

  “Sorry?”

  Muriel’s dark eyes were sad. She shook her head. “Not.”

  Molly didn’t believe it. She’d hadn’t the morning sickness. She hadn’t imagined the over-the-top emotions. Was it possible her mother had misread the test? It was a ludicrous thought. Muriel wasn’t a Rhodes Scholar but she was an excellent reader. She even belonged to the Blackbird Ladies Reading Society that Molly had started several years ago. Muriel was more than capable of telling the difference between “pregnant” and “not pregnant.”

  As if she knew that Molly had to see the proof, Muriel handed her the stick. She stared. Only three letters to make such a difference. She thought of all the unmarried women in the world who would welcome that message. Molly was unmarried. She should have felt relieved. This gave her a chance to clear her slate. She could confess to Cam without seeing the grimace acknowledging that he was caught in her deception. She could return to the work that she’d found satisfying all these years. She’d taken her shot at motherhood and she’d lost. It was out of her hands.

  It wasn’t meant to be.

  It felt like the end of the world.

  She didn’t realize she was crying until Muriel gently wiped away her tears with a tissue. Her mother gathered her into her warm, welcoming arms but Molly felt none of the heat.

  “It isn’t fair,” Muriel murmured. “You wanted this so badly. It isn’t right.”

  Molly closed her ey
es. “I wanted the baby for the wrong reasons,” she murmured.

  “Will you tell him? The boy from town?”

  Cam Outlaw might be past the age of thirty but Muriel would always think of him as that boy from town. The one who broke her daughter’s heart.

  “I’ll tell him.” But not yet. She wanted to be alone with her grief first.

  Muriel understood. She hugged Molly.

  “Call me, nizwia.”

  “I will.” Molly wandered to her living room and watched through the front window as Muriel climb into the family’s Chevy pickup. She stood there long after the truck disappeared down the road. After awhile her gaze wandered until she noticed a cobweb attached to the bookcase that contained volumes about pregnancy and childcare, books full of information she needed in her work, information she’d hoped to use in her own life. The cobweb looked ghostly, magical in the soft glow from the moon. How long had it taken the spider to spin the web? And where was that spider now? Had she abandoned her home? Would she return? Molly decided to find out. She slid down to the floor, circled her knees with her arms, rested her face on her knees and prepared to wait.

  When the phone clanged in her ear she jerked awake, immediately aware of aching joints and bones caused by a night spent on the hard-wood floor. She tried to stand to get to the phone but her knees refused to obey so she fell back in a heap and listened to the answering machine.

  “Ms. Whitecloud, this is Sarah Lanham from the Spotswood Fertility Clinic in Boston. I’m sorry to bother you so early but I wanted to let you know that your donor turned up yesterday and, well, to put it plainly, I revealed a bit too much information about you. I believe he knows your identity and I’m afraid he is not pleased.” She paused. “Just for my own peace of mind I need to know whether or not the insemination was successful.”

  Molly heard the awful tension in the woman’s voice. She was probably afraid of being sued by her for revealing her identity or by Cam for giving away his sperm.

  Molly lurched toward the phone and picked it up. “You can relax,” she said, in a kind voice. “I took a test last night. The results are negative.”

  “Oh.” The woman couldn’t quite restrain her relief. “Oh, I’m sorry for you, dear. I know how much you wanted this but perhaps, all things considered, this is the better outcome.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’ll let you go, Miss Whitecloud. Best of luck in the future.”

  Molly said goodbye and hung up. So Cam knew what she’d done and probably Mrs. Lanham would inform him of the “better outcome.”

  Molly stretched her back, glanced out at the dawn and back at the web. The spider hadn’t come back. She slid back to the floor and hugged her knees with her arms.

  She’d wait a little longer.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Daniel Grey Wolf applied the last strokes to the thick piece of vellum on his desk then leaned back in his chair and held the drawing up to get a better look at it.

  God, she was beautiful. He drew his thumb over the high cheekbones he’d sketched, and for just a minute, allowed himself to drown in her clear eyes. A sense of emptiness coalesced inside him.

  She’d told him she was free and he believed it. Molly Whitecloud had Cameron Outlaw’s heart whether he acknowledged it or not. Sharon had said she wanted him and Daniel believed her. And yet he’d said no to the most precious gift he’d ever been offered. He told himself she needed someone younger but he wondered if he was being honest with himself. Was the truth that he was afraid? He had stayed on the sidelines for a long time. Maybe too long. Did he lack the courage to get into the game?

  And Sharon wanted a child. Years ago, he had wanted a wife and child but he’d waited and then Molly’s trouble gave him the perfect excuse to play the safe role of protector. Was it too late? Could he make himself vulnerable enough to be the man Sharon needed?

  He would never forget the look on her face after he’d rejected her offer. Deep, quiet sadness that had made his throat ache and his chest feel hollow.

  Had he made the right decision for the wrong reasons? Or had he made the wrong decisions with the reasons merely irrelevant?

  Daniel crumpled the drawing and pitched it into the wastebasket and got wearily to his feet. Today he felt every hour of his forty eight years. He’d dressed carefully in a chamois-cloth shirt and buckskins in order to escort her to the harvest festival. He wore his long, straight gray hair in a braid. As long as he kept a neutral expression on his face he knew he looked like a cigar store Indian. He was an alien to Sharon Johnson. He wanted them both to remember that.

  The sound of fiddle music infiltrated the room. The harvest festival had begun. He waited to hear her knock. As always, it reverberated in his chest and he felt that rush of excitement he hadn’t experienced in decades until he’d met Sharon.

  She gave him her usual friendly smile but her face was pale beneath the freckles. She wore a pair of plain jeans and old Keds and a blue-plaid flannel shirt.

  “I can always tell what mood you’re in,” he said, with an attempt at levity, “by your wardrobe. When you wear the red flannel shirt, you’re feeling upbeat, the yellow, you’re happy.”

  “And this one?” Her hazel eyes were luminous with unshed tears but he refused to use the adjective that came immediately to mind.

  “Pensive,” he said. He couldn’t resist cupping her face in his hands.

  “You’ve been crying.”

  She nodded.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “I could use a cup of tea.”

  He smiled at the small request, slid one hand down the length of her arm and twined her fingers in his in a gesture of friendship. Giving comfort to disappointed women was one area in which Daniel had a yeoman’s experience.

  He started to lead her toward his kitchenette but she resisted.

  “Daniel, I don’t really want tea. I want… I want…”

  He sensed the danger but was helpless to draw back.

  “What?” He murmured. “You want what?”

  She moved against him and Daniel felt her soft breasts mound against his chest. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Daniel shivered.

  “Could you just hold me, Daniel? No strings, I promise.”

  He shouldn’t do it. His body was hardening faster than the speed of light. He felt his control slipping and knew he had to move away.

  His mind listened. His body did not.

  He tightened his arms around her. He knew she couldn’t mistake the insistent arousal under his trousers. She didn’t. She pressed closer.

  “Tighter,” she said, “could you hold me tighter?”

  Daniel damned himself for a fool even as he tightened his arms around her soft curves and let one palm slide down to her shapely hip. She shivered and rubbed against him and he groaned. She placed her own hands on his hips and pulled him closer, driving his erection against her soft belly. He buried his face in her auburn hair.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered. It was an unnecessary directive. He’d already lowered his head. Her lips were warm and pillow soft and she made needy little noises. Daniel’s pulse throbbed in his throat, in his temple, in his groin. The wet, warmth of her mouth nearly sent him into a coma. She tasted as sweet as Penobscot fry bread. His body kicked and he went crazy, feasting on her like a starving man. He couldn’t break the contact with her mouth, not even to breathe. She finally came up for air and he pulled away.

  “No,” she protested. “Don’t stop. I just need some oxygen.”

  Before he could object she rose to her tiptoes and began to press small kisses against his cheek, his ear, down the column of his throat. She pulled the soft fabric of his shirt out of his pants and slid her fingers up the hot skin of his torso.

  Daniel wondered if his heart would leap out of his chest and into her hand. He grimaced. Something was leaping at her and it wasn’t his heart. She felt it, too. And then she was touching him, cupping him. He laid a big hand over hers. He was fast approaching t
he point of no return. A shudder of longing racked his body.

  “Sharon,” he ground out. “No.”

  “You’re right,” she whispered. “Not here. On the bed.”

  “No.” His voice sounded weird. High and cracked and desperate.

  “No strings, remember?”

  How could he tell her he wanted strings? He wished he knew the right thing to do. He wished he could think clearly enough to figure out the right thing to do. He wished he had the courage to tell this woman how he felt about her.

  “Life is short, Daniel. I want you and, at least now, I know you want me, too.”

  The earnest hazel eyes warmed his blood, his soul. They dispelled his fear. Without another word he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the pull-out sofa that was also his bed. She twined her arms around his neck, released the leather band that held his braid and threaded her fingers through his hair then she brought her soft mouth to his and, again, he tasted heaven.

  “People will say I’m too old,” he whispered.

  She gave him a smile as beautiful as the dawn.

  “People,” she said, “will be wrong.”

  ****

  What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.

  Sir Walter Scott’s words fit her perfectly. She stared at the entry on her computer. She’d thought it had come from Shakespeare, which only showed that her education was sadly lacking. That’s what she could do this winter, she thought. When the snow kept her bound to her tiny cottage, she could read the classics.

  There was some comfort in the picture of herself wrapped in a warm quilt reading The Canterbury Tales. It would be lonely but peaceful. And safe.

  First though, she had to see Cam Outlaw one last time. His sky blue eyes would be accusing even if his words were not. She’d deceived him again about a child. And this time it had been no accident but a deliberate betrayal.