Borrowed Angel

by Heather Graham

  “Excuse my grandson’s rudeness,” Willie said loudly. Ashley could hear that Eric’s descent had ceased. He shook his head, making a tsking sound. “It must be the Viking in him.”

  “The Viking!” Brad laughed.

  “Umm,” Willie said. “And his mother was such a good woman, gentle and kind. I don’t understand. But it is not the Seminole in him who is so rude. I want you to know that.”

  They all heard the soft expletive that left Eric’s lips as he walked away from the chickee. “Cover your ears, chicks!” Marna warned her children.

  “What’s wrong?” David asked his father.

  “Nothing, nothing. Uncle Eric is on the warpath again,” Tony said serenely. He looked at Ashley. “You haven’t even tasted the koonti bread yet. How is it?”

  “Different,” Ashley admitted. It wasn’t a soft bread, and it had a nutty flavor. “Good!” she said. She wasn’t going to worry about Eric, she determined. His family was charming, and she was going to have a good time with them all. “And the catfish is wonderful.”

  “Freshwater,” Tony told her. “Freshwater catfish is always good. Stay away from the saltwater variety.”

  After a while, they finished dinner. Brad and Wendy said that they were going to take Josh home.

  Ashley walked them down to the water with the others. It was hard to see them go. In the short time that she had known them, she felt as if they had become very good friends. She hugged them both, thanking them for everything. “Come back whenever you’re ready,” Wendy told her.

  She smiled. “When they clear the roads, I’ll have to get back. Tara is going to take time off with the baby, so I’ll have to go into the office and see how things are going.”

  Wendy nodded. “It’s important to you then, your work?”

  “I like designing. I don’t care about the office or administrative part very much, but after Galliard, Tara and I decided that we wanted to work for ourselves.”

  Wendy nodded. “Well, don’t worry, we’ll see that you get into the city when the time comes. And we’ll be with you until you’re safely away.”

  “Thanks,” Ashley said, hugging Wendy again. Then the small blonde and her husband departed, waving to everyone.

  “Well, this is it then!” Marna told her. “Come on. It will be sunset soon.”

  Marna led her back to the center of the village. She went up to her own place and came back with towels and clothing and her two girls at her heels. They stopped by Wendy’s chickee and Ashley borrowed a long white cotton gown, a comb, brush and a bar of soap. They started down for the water. Elizabeth was entranced by Ashley and asked her dozens of questions about New York and modeling and all else. Ashley, equally entranced with the girl, combed out her hair and answered everything. “Would you like to live in New York?” she asked her.

  “I’d like an apartment there,” Elizabeth said. “But I’d want to be able to come home, too.”

  Marna had stripped and moved out into the pool with little Dorinda. “It’s wonderful! Like a cool bath!” she cried delightedly.

  Elizabeth took off her clothes and went dashing out to the pool. Ashley couldn’t help but hesitate. The water looked black.

  Marna laughed. “See the way that Elizabeth came? Run out that way, on the path, and you won’t hit any muck at all.”

  “There’s really nothing in there, is there?” Ashley asked. “A coral snake—”

  “They don’t like water; they like dry!” Marna assured her. “So do the rattlers. And we’ve yet to find a moccasin in here.”

  “Yet!” Ashley wailed.

  “It’s all right!” Elizabeth yelled.

  Ashley stripped off her clothing and headed along the pine path. She closed her eyes, swallowed and dived in.

  The water was cool. She didn’t stand on muck, but on rock and sand. Still, she couldn’t see below the surface very well, and she determined not to move very far. “It’s all right!” Marna said, and swam away. Dorinda and Elizabeth followed, tried to make Ashley join in.

  “Oh, what the hel—heck!” Ashley said at last, and squinting her eyes, she moved deeper into the water and swam with the others. Elizabeth splashed her, and she splashed the girl. It was fun.

  She lost all awareness of time and place.

  She even forgot Eric.

  But he had not forgotten her. He had walked down to the pool and discovered the women. He was about to turn and walk away discreetly when he heard Ashley’s laughter. Then he paused and came forward.

  She was there, in the water, with his sister and nieces, as natural as Eve, and looking comfortable in the wilderness.

  She played and splashed with the others, then climbed out and picked up a towel. He watched her standing there, still smiling, wet and slick and framed by the sunset. The dying light touched her hair with a spectacular radiance, and fell over her flesh, defining every beautiful curve and nuance of her body. She had never been more beautiful.

  And he had never wanted her more.

  With a soft groan he turned away and wandered back to the solitude he had ordered on himself. He indulged in his grandfather’s potion, in the black drink, and he lay down, wishing it would release the tempest from his body.

  It did not.

  * * *

  Ashley dressed in Wendy’s long white cotton gown. She felt refreshed and clean. She went to Marna’s chickee where Tony was reading to the boys by lamplight and brewing tea.

  “Seminole tea?” Ashley asked him.

  “Lipton’s,” Tony said with a grin. “I’m just a tea drinker at heart, what can I say.”

  Ashley laughed and sat down with them. She had a cup of black tea and brushed Elizabeth’s hair again. Then she did Dorinda’s. When it started to grow late, she yawned and said that she needed to get some sleep. Tony walked her back.

  “There’s always a fire burning in the center of the village. There’s always light,” he assured her at the bottom of her ladder.

  “Thanks!” she told him.

  “You’re going to be all right?” he asked.

  “Fine,” she assured him.

  He wished her a good-night and left her, and she wasn’t at all sure that she would be all right. She had never felt so alone in her entire life. There might be a fire burning in the center of the village, but it didn’t seem to reach her chickee.

  There would be a lamp up there, she thought. Brad and Wendy would have something.

  She crawled up, and suddenly the darkness seemed terribly menacing. She thought that the floor was alive with living creatures—snakes and spiders and cockroaches or palmetto bugs. She was afraid to walk.

  “And I’m going to sleep here?” she asked out loud.

  She hurried to the trunk, found a battery-powered lantern and switched it on, bathing the chickee in yellow light. She smiled to herself and breathed more easily. The place was swept clean. She was certain that everyone had seen to their property as soon as the storm was over. Surely she was in a far better place than a New York City delicatessen.

  “I will survive this just fine!” she assured herself. She found a reed mat and unrolled it. Then she found a pillow in the trunk and laughed softly, glad that either Brad or Wendy still required a few comforts of the white world. She set the pillow down, found a blanket, curled up and tried to close her eyes.

  She couldn’t sleep with the light; it was too bright. She pulled the lantern close and turned it off. Then she lay back down.

  It wasn’t a hot night because of the wind that rushed past the chickee, bringing all kinds of sounds. Like a bird calling and crickets chirping. Like that peculiar stalking noise, as if something was moving through the trees by the pool.

  She jerked up, reaching for the lamp. A scream rose in her throat. Someone, something, was moving up the ladder. She opened her mouth as a creature appeared in the doorway.

  Her scream escaped—then broke off abruptly. She laughed and choked. “Baby!” she exclaimed. The panther had preferred her company to Eric�
��s tonight.

  “Bad cat, you scared me half to death!” she said. Baby snarled, them promptly curled up beside her. To her amazement Ashley found herself hugging the huge beast. “Well, you’re safer than anything else around here!” she declared. Baby licked her arm; the cat’s tongue was like sandpaper. “That’s enough. We haven’t decided that we’re friends for life or anything!” Ashley announced, then turned out the light and lay down.

  She had barely closed her eyes when tension streaked through her again. There was someone inside. He had come in silence, but she felt him now.

  Her eyes flew open. There was a man towering over her, his skin completely bronze in the pale moonlight. Her scream died. She recognized him instantly. The muscle-rippled chest, the cock of his head, the way that he stood.

  “Eric!” she gasped, shivering.

  “Ashley!” His tone was harsh. “You screamed. Why the hell did you scream?”

  She sat up, smiling ruefully. “I’m sorry. I thought I caught it before anyone heard me. I was just startled. Baby came up here.”

  “Oh.” He looked at the cat for a long moment. “You’re all right then,” he said to Ashley.

  She nodded. “I’m all right.”

  But still he hesitated. Then he reached down, urging the cat away from her. “Go, Baby, go sleep somewhere else!” Snarling from being disturbed, Baby waved her tail disdainfully and headed for the ladder.

  Eric reached for Ashley, pulling her to her feet.

  Ashley saw the pulse that beat furiously at the base of his throat. He held her against him, then caught the hem of her gown and stripped the garment from her body. She stood before him in the moonlight, naked and touched by the softest glow. His breath left him in deep and ragged sighs as he watched her in silence. Gently, he touched his lips to hers, then set his mouth on her shoulders, her collarbone and her breasts. Slowly he caressed the length of her, and where he touched her, she became molten. He moved his lips over her belly, trailing liquid passion across the bare flesh. Then he caught her buttocks in his hands and kissed at the juncture of her thighs, he sought every intimacy, stroking and teasing the very bud of her desire. She cried out softly and collapsed in his arms. He lowered her gently to the floor, shed his jeans and he was one with her.

  There was magic in the night, Ashley thought, and in the power of the primitive earth. This was where she longed to be—with this man. His temper was fierce, his pride was ice, but he loved like fire, with all the fury and passion of life.

  She strained and writhed and arched against him, and she whispered his name. The moon exploded with a soft and mystic glow, and she drifted down with it, to kiss the earth and lie upon it in naked splendor.

  She drew his head against her. She felt his light kiss on her breast, and he held her close. Words hovered on her lips. I think that I love you, I think that I have been falling in love from the very moment that I first saw your face….

  She didn’t speak. He wouldn’t want to hear her words; he would think that they were a lie. She couldn’t say them.

  Tomorrow he would probably be ice again. He would spurn her; he would forget tonight.

  He didn’t know how to believe in love anymore.

  She had to let go completely; it was the only choice that she had. It was strange how very clear that seemed at that moment.

  She would let go tomorrow. But tonight…

  She held him close and savored his nearness. When his lips found hers again, she greeted them eagerly. She made love fiercely and savagely, knowing that she would take and hold dearly the memories of this moment between them and the moon and the breeze and the sky and the primitive earth.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Tell me something. Honestly. Have you ever seen a more beautiful sunset?” Eric asked her softly.

  It was very early evening and they were down by the pool together, lying idly on the leaf-carpeted bank and watching the coming of night. Ashley shook her head. No, she had never seen a more beautiful sunset. Golden light fell on a profusion of wild orchids, branches swayed in the breeze, and far across the water a great blue heron stood on a single foot in a motionless vigil. She still considered the swamp deadly, but it touched her that a place so dangerous could also offer such peace and tranquillity. She was grateful to be here.

  And grateful to be with Eric.

  For two days now they had stayed in the village. Almost friends by day, parting by evening and coming together again by the moonlight. It was his grandparents’ home, and they both respected Willie and Mary, but they were far away, and here, privacy was deeply respected, too. She was comfortable in her surroundings. Eric was discreet, as was his sister and Tony and the cousins and uncles and others she was coming to know.

  The second night he had played with her fingers and told her that tribal law had nothing against consenting lovers. Warriors and maidens had often dallied before marriage. Adultery was the sin. Warriors and maidens alike could lose their ears or noses for that offense. Marriage was sacred and to be honored.

  She liked that idea, but it left her wondering about his feelings for her. She wasn’t his wife. He’d had a wife whom he had loved beyond all else.

  But she didn’t think about it long. She was there on borrowed time already. When the roads were cleared and the downed electrical wires repaired, she would leave.

  Until then…

  Tonight, they had the sunset.

  She had awakened alone that morning. Instinct had drawn her to the pool, and that’s where she found him. Like the great blue heron, he had stood silently, watching the sun rise. She had almost left him there with the peace he seemed to need and to have found. But though he stood away from her, with his back to her, he had heard her, and without turning, had called to her.

  He had faced her at last, and a smile had touched his features. He was content. She had walked into his arms while the sun rose, drying the morning dew, warming them as they lowered to the ground together. The breeze had whispered soft encouragement, and she had learned in those moments that no man or woman needed more than the primitive earth, that everything else of value and beauty came from within. In his arms she hadn’t feared any creature of the swamp, because she was with him.

  She didn’t think that there could be anything more beautiful than lying there together, watching the day awaken. They hadn’t spoken; they had just been together, and it had been wonderful.

  The rest of the day had been very full. Ashley had spent the time with Marna and Mary, learning what a koonti root was and just how hard it was to grind one to make bread. Her palms were blistered and every one of her nails was cracked and broken, and she didn’t care in the least. She was just delighted that she had more or less survived the initiation.

  Lying idle now on the bank, she thought of how Marna and Tony and the children were delightful, how Willie was both wise and funny; and she was almost sorry that somewhere else in the world was her apartment, her friends, associates and employees. She realized she didn’t want to leave this place. Especially not when Eric was like this—his mood light, his eyes filled with laughter and a certain amount of pride in her, too. Maybe it was his pride in her that mattered the most. She wasn’t sure. And even if she couldn’t hold him forever, she would be able to cherish the memory of this time always.

  She watched his face as he chewed on a blade of grass and gazed at the distant horizon. Then he glanced her way, and she couldn’t begin to read his thoughts. He smiled, dropping the blade of grass, and planted a kiss on her lips.

  “You’ve done real well, white squaw,” he told her teasingly. He picked up her hand and gently rubbed his finger over a blister. “I had always thought that you wouldn’t be able to bear a broken nail.”

  She pulled her hand away, looking with a certain superiority out over the water. “I’ve done exceptionally well for a featherbrained hoke-tee,” she said sweetly, and he laughed. Then his laughter faded and he rose and walked some distance away from her. He leaned against a pine tree,
still gazing out on the pool as the sun fell.

  “I know I’ve been harsh with you,” he said quietly. Then he faced her. “I meant to be. I meant to be cruel.”

  “Why?” Ashley asked him.

  He smiled, turning back to the water. “Because It’s a harsh and cruel world here.”

  Ashley shook her head, seeking the understanding that he was trying to give her now. “It’s not a horrible world. Your grandparents prefer the wilderness. You live in a nice, comfortable house, and so do Brad and Wendy and the others. Actually you seem to do exceptionally well.”

  “I do well because my father did well. He was in the army during World War II and he learned a lot about the world. He met my mother during the liberation of Norway and brought her home. She loved being here, but she made him accept her life, too. My mother knew the importance of education, and my father remembered enough of the past. He said that most of America wasn’t even aware that there was still a war being waged within the country. We might not have ever surrendered, but as Indians, we were never going to win a war against white America. If we wanted to win any battles, we were going to have to win as men, not Indians. Then, at the same time, we all know that heritage is desperately important.” He shrugged. “Dad started buying land, as an individual. He sent us all to good schools. And he taught me that words were the weapons we had to use in this day and age, and that words were far more powerful than any ax.” He paused, shrugging. “‘More powerful than the sword.’ But this isn’t an ideal state. It’s far from it. We do fight poverty, we do fight illiteracy, and it’s my fight, I can’t forget it.”

  “I understand—”

  “No, Ashley, you don’t,” he said quietly. “Or maybe you do, but not completely.” He walked back to her, smoothing his thumb over her cheek. “You really are so beautiful, wild and exciting with emerald eyes and flame hair.” He sat down beside her, holding her hand. “Elizabeth—my Elizabeth, Marna named her oldest daughter for her—wasn’t a Seminole.”