Beneath Passion's Skies

by Bobbi Smith

  “Why didn’t we take the steamboat out of New Orleans like you’d planned?”

  “There was a man named Watkins already in New Orleans looking for me. I overheard him talking to some men in the steamship office that day I went to check on our passage.”

  “So that’s why you hired Blade. . . .”

  “Yes. I still had to get to California so I could meet with my sister and nephew, and overland was the only way left. If Michael’s men had caught up with me that soon, there would have been no way Sarah could have gotten far enough away to guarantee Christopher’s safety.”

  “Does Blade know the truth now?”

  “Yes. We talked last night and I told him everything.”

  Lucky stared at her, trying to grasp what it all meant—and where it left him. “You used me,” he accused.

  “No. Never that,” Angel denied. “I wanted to help you, but I knew you were much too proud to accept any offer of help and I knew you didn’t trust me. That’s why I made you the job offer. I was sure you’d be better off with me anywhere, than you would be staying all alone on the streets.”

  “So there are men still chasing you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you suddenly decide to tell us the truth?”

  Angel looked a bit shame-faced. “Because I finally came to trust Blade. He’s very special.”

  Lucky agreed. He thought of that day at the lake when he’d first realized that Angel and Blade were attracted to each other, and he asked, “Do you love him?”

  Angel gave him a quick, surprised look and then answered with a resigned smile, “Yes. I love him, and I trust him completely.”

  Lucky was glad that everything was straightened out between them, but he grew defensive as he thought about his own predicament. It was good that they were happy, but what was going to happen to him? “What about me now?”

  “What about you?”

  “Is our deal off? ’Cause if it is, I still want the whole amount. You said in New Orleans that I wouldn’t get paid if I quit, but you didn’t say nothing about what would happen if you did,” he demanded angrily. The strong emotion hid the panic that gripped him at the thought of losing Blade and Angel.

  “Lucky,” she said gently, wanting to ease his fear. “Nothing’s changed. We’re still going to California. The only thing that’s different is that you and Blade now know the truth.”

  “You still want me to go with you?” He covered his pleasure with caution.

  “Of course I want you with me! I love you, Lucky. I don’t want to lose you.” Angel held out her arms to him; and, for the very first time, Lucky went to her and hugged her. She held him tight. Lucky cherished her embrace.

  Later, when they were getting ready to saddle up and ride out, Blade approached him. “We’re going to have to take care of Angel, you and me,” Blade told Lucky as he rested a warm, affectionate hand on his shoulder. “She needs us, you know. We have to keep her safe.”

  Lucky was pleased by this unexpected man-to-man confidence, and he felt proud as he answered him, “I know. I don’t want those bad men to hurt her. I may not be her real brother, but I wish I were. I love her.”

  “Good.” Blade smiled down at him with genuine respect, liking him, knowing he had the makings of a fine man despite his rough beginnings. “That makes two of us, son.”

  The boy gazed with open affection at the man who had become his hero. They shared a manly look of mutual regard, and then mounted their horses to escort Angel to safety. They rode westward again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I’ll take your horse,” Blade offered as he helped Angel dismount. His hands lingered at her waist as he set her on her feet before him. He longed to take her in his arms and kiss her, but he held himself in check. Lucky was nearby, and he didn’t want to do anything untoward.

  “Thank you,” Angel replied, smiling up at him. She had no idea that Blade thought her smile seductive. She just knew that she loved him and wished she could kiss him right that minute.

  Reluctantly, they moved apart. Angel began to set up camp, while Blade took their horses and joined Lucky.

  “You gonna marry Angel?” Lucky asked as Blade approached. He’d been watching them and had noticed their closeness, but Blade was caught completely off-guard by the question. “What?”

  “You said you loved Angel. Are you gonna marry her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you love her, you should marry her.” Lucky’s logic had a straightforward simplicity Blade liked.

  “I wish it were that simple,” Blade hedged. He’d been thinking of little else. Being near her and not being able to touch her frustrated him. They’d shared a short, sweet kiss every chance they could; but, with the boy along, they’d both decided it would be best if they remained apart. He dreamed of proposing and taking her with him to the ranch, but reality intruded on his dreams and shattered them. He could not ignore his past and reputation.

  “Why isn’t it that simple?” Lucky persisted. “You love each other. Right?”

  “Right,” Blade agreed. “But sometimes things don’t turn out the way we hope they will.”

  “Aren’t you even going to ask her?”

  “When the time is right,” he answered evasively.

  “Good.” Satisfied for the moment, Lucky returned to his work.

  Blade, however, could not turn his thoughts away from Angel. Since their night of loving, she had been foremost in his mind. He wanted her for his own, but he held back. There was so much about him she didn’t know, so much he never talked about to anyone.

  She believed she loved him, but would she still feel that way once she’d learned everything about him? He had to be certain. When they stopped at the Wichita village, her reaction to his mother’s people would show him if she could accept his heritage. Though he’d been raised as a white man, he came face to face with prejudice every day. And there was the violence of his lifestyle. No matter how much he wanted to retire to the ranch, there was always the danger that some young gun might come looking for him. He had to be sure Angel understood everything. He never wanted her to regret her decision, should she agree to be his wife.

  A few hours later when Blade was finally ready to turn in, Angel was still awake. He felt her gaze upon him, but turned and walked away from the camp. He wanted to lose himself in the night.

  Angel had noticed that Blade had been unusually quiet all night, his expression guarded. She’d watched him, trying to gauge his mood, but couldn’t figure out what had upset him. When she realized that he’d left the camp because of her, she knew she had to go after him.

  “Blade? Is something wrong?” Angel asked, coming up behind him in the darkness.

  “No, why?” Blade answered, turning to her in the moonlight. To be this close to her and not be able to make love was torture.

  “I don’t know,” she said softly. “You looked preoccupied all evening, and I thought something was bothering you.”

  He smiled wryly. “The only thing bothering me is you, love.” He couldn’t resist the urge to lift his hand and brush his knuckles along the soft curve of her cheek. “You’re beautiful, and I want you so badly.”

  His light caress left her feeling cherished and loved. She sighed and slipped her arms around his neck, rising on tiptoe to kiss him. That he loved her enough to deny himself increased her respect for him. “Once this is over, things will be different for us.”

  “I hope so,” he said, kissing her again. He’d meant to keep the kiss chaste, but the control he so prided himself on deserted him the moment he held her close. Her lips were honeyed; her flesh a sweet, alluring invitation. His hands dropped to her hips and he brought her tight against him. His body responded instinctively to hers, and he was a breath away from heaven when he ended the embrace. He managed a weak smile as he pressed his fingertips against her lips to ease the pain of breaking apart.

  “You’d better go on to bed now.”

  “I don’
t want to.”

  “Me neither.” Why was the right thing always the hardest thing to do? “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

  “Aren’t they all?”

  “Yes, but tomorrow, we’ll reach the Wichita village.”

  “Are you sure they won’t mind our just riding in like this?”

  “We’ll be welcomed,” he assured her. It had been a while since he’d last visited his grandparents, but they always greeted him with open arms and this time would be no exception.

  “You haven’t said much about your mother’s family. Do you have a lot of relatives?”

  “Just my grandmother, Soaring Dove, and my grandfather, Night Wolf.”

  “Do you see them often?” Angel asked. Blade was still a mystery to her. Loving him as she did, she was eager to find out all she could.

  “Not as often as I should. But don’t worry, they’ll be glad to see us.”

  “Tell me about them. I don’t know anything about Indians except . . . well . . . what people say.”

  “What do they say?” he asked, but he already knew.

  “That Indians are blood-thirsty savages who kill for no reason,” she told him.

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Is it true?”

  “Some tribes are more hostile than others, as some white men are more vicious than others. The Wichita are peaceful unless they’re defending their own.”

  In the moonlight she could see the Indian heritage etched clearly in his features. She could see strength and pride. It was easy to imagine him as a warrior for his tribe, and the thought sent a shiver through her. “Blade?”

  “What?”

  “How did your parents meet?”

  “My father was a trader. He was injured, and the Wichita found him and nursed him back to health,” he revealed. “While he was in the village, he fell in love with my mother. She loved him, too, so they married. When he left, she went with him.”

  “Was it hard for her, leaving her home that way and going to live in a whole different world?”

  Terrible memories flooded through Blade. His mother had been a gentle, loving woman, but he remembered all too clearly how she’d been looked down upon by the whites whenever they’d gone into town for supplies. They’d thought her less than human and treated her that way.

  “It was very difficult for her, but she was happy with my father. Only death could have separated them.” His answer was terse as he remembered the depth of their devotion.

  “If two people love each other, then even the hardest of trials are bearable,” Angel remarked softly, gazing up at him. “It must have been very difficult for you when they died.”

  “I was fourteen. The fever took them.” His expression turned bleak.

  “What did you do all alone so young?” Angel put her arms around him as she saw the despair in his eyes.

  He shrugged as he tried to force the turmoil of his emotions back under control. “It wasn’t easy, but I handled it.” Yes, he thought, he’d handled it all right. He’d practiced with his gun until he’d been fast and accurate, and then he’d gone looking for the three men who’d kept him from getting the help that would have saved his mother. “It wasn’t too much after that that I started hiring my gun out.”

  “But you were just a child.”

  “By then I was a man.”

  She heard the hardness in his voice and knew that that had been the terrible turning point in his life. “I heard the talk about you when I was in New Orleans.” She paused as she felt him stiffen. “What really happened, Blade?”

  It was so painful that Blade almost couldn’t tell her. She had been honest with him, though, and now it was his turn. She needed to know what she would have to face if she married him. The rigidity left him as he began to explain. “My father caught the fever first, and my mother tried to cure him in her own way, but nothing worked. The same day he died, my mother was struck down. I went into town for help, even though she begged me not to go.” He stopped and drew a deep, shuddering breath.

  She urged, “Go on.” Her arms tightened around him as she saw him in her mind’s eye—a terrified boy racing to save his mother’s life.

  “I was scared, but I went anyway. She’d been right, though. The doctor wouldn’t come. He didn’t have time to waste on a squaw.”

  Pain stabbed at Angel’s heart as she listened.

  “I tried to hurry home, but three drunks who didn’t want half-breeds or Indians in their town stopped me. I begged them to let me go.” The terror and helplessness that had gripped him then filled him now. His tone went flat as he continued, “I wasn’t much of a challenge for them. I don’t remember what happened. When I came to, I was tied on my horse, out in the countryside somewhere. By the time I got home, my mother was . . . really bad.” Blade remembered how, even in her weakened state, she’d reached out with tender hands to smooth the tears from his bruised cheeks and to tell him she loved him. Those had been the last words she’d ever said to him. His jaw tensed at the recollection. “She died a little later.”

  “I’m sorry,” Angel whispered huskily as a rush of tender emotion filled her.

  Blade moved out of her embrace. “The next day I wasn’t scared any more.” His words were harsh and deadly, but the look in his eyes was haunted as he remembered the pain and sorrow that had filled him as he’d stood over their barren graves. “I buried them both by myself. Then I got my gun. When I got good enough, I went looking for the three drunks.” His eyes locked on hers as he tried to see into her soul. He needed to know how she felt about his thirst for revenge. Did she understand—or was she repulsed? “I made sure it was a fair fight in front of witnesses. Then I left town, and I’ve never gone back, not even to the ranch.”

  “I can understand why,” she told him, her love for him growing ever stronger.

  “I’ve lived by the gun ever since, Angel.”

  Angel was too much in love to worry about that. She trusted him. Blade had deliberately distanced himself from her as he’d talked, and she now took a step toward him, wanting a return to their intimacy. “I love you, Blade. Nothing will ever change that.” She saw a flicker of something in his troubled gray eyes. Doubt? Or was it hope? She pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. “Thank you for telling me. I know it wasn’t easy for you, and I’m glad you confided in me.”

  “It’s something I don’t think about very often.”

  “I understand,” she said gently. “I try not to think about the night before Elizabeth’s funeral when I found the marks on her arm. It hurts too much.”

  Blade kissed her once more, this time with poignant tenderness. He held her to his heart. “I wish I could hold you like this forever.”

  “And ever.”

  They clung to each other in silence, enjoying the serenity of their embrace. Reluctantly, they moved apart.

  “We’d better get some rest.”

  Blade walked her to her pallet, kissed her once more, and then sought his own solitary bedroll. He hadn’t dredged up those painful memories in many years, but now, having faced them with Angel, he didn’t feel the same depth of pain he usually experienced. Angel cared. A deep, abiding sense of peace filled him. She had heard him out and had offered only acceptance and love. She had not condemned him or otherwise passed judgment on anything he’d done. She’d said that she loved him and that nothing would change that. He wanted to believe, but he had to be sure. Tomorrow when they reached the village, he would have his answer.

  Across the campfire, her heart filled with love for Blade, Angel curled in her blankets and slept.

  As Blade, Angel, and Lucky approached the village late that afternoon, the word spread among the Wichita people that visitors were coming and they left what they were doing to see who was riding in. When one of the men, a short, dark-skinned man of stocky build, recognized Blade, he called out a greeting to him in the native tongue. Blade smiled broadly, lifted a hand to wave, and responded in kind.

  Angel and Lucky st
ared in fascination tinged with fear as Blade led their way slowly into the village. It was much larger than Angel and Lucky had expected, with over thirty homes in the camp. To their surprise, however, the abodes were not tepees, but round buildings constructed of sturdy supporting poles with grass coverings.

  The people who’d gathered to watch their entrance stared at them with open interest. The weather was warm, and the men wore only loincloths and mocassins. The women were dressed in far less revealing attire; their deerskin gowns, decorated with elks’ teeth, hung below their knees. Angel could tell they were talking about her, for they whispered and laughed, pointing at her. Not wanting to betray her nervousness, Angel clutched her reins a little tighter and tried to smile. It was not easy.

  “My grandfather’s home is just ahead,” Blade told them as he angled his horse toward a hut a short distance away.

  “Are you sure we’re welcome here?” Lucky asked.

  Blade flashed him a quick smile. “Scared?”

  “A little,” he admitted, but then added with a surge of bravado, “but only ’cause I don’t know what they’re saying.”

  “There’s no need to be afraid. They’ve been talking about Angel’s hair. One woman said it was the color of dead grass.” He chuckled at the remark as he glanced over at Angel, thinking her golden mane glorious. “But another insisted it was the color of the summer sun—vivid, glowing, and bright. I think the summer sun is closest.”

  “Thanks,” she returned, managing a real smile at last. “I wondered why they were laughing.”

  “We’re here,” Blade said, reining in his horse and dismounting before an elderly couple who watched him with great pride. “Come and meet my grandparents, Soaring Dove and Night Wolf.”

  Night Wolf was of average height and had coal black hair and black eyes. He tended to the heavy side and looked ferocious until he smiled at Blade. He called to him in his native tongue and went to embrace him as soon as he’d dismounted.