by Norah Hess
"None, I hope." D'lise looked scandalized, then grinned when she saw the teasing in Samuel's eyes. "I'll be ready to leave just as soon as I leave Kane a note."
In her hurry, she merely wrote, "Have gone to a box supper at the church. D'lise." A minute later, as Samuel helped her into the buggy, her spirits dropped. From the corner of her eye she saw Raven walk from behind the barn. Kane's lover had returned.
Kane felt like hauling off and knocking his friend on his rear end. Big Beaver was purposely tormenting him by continuing to hunt, even though the sun would be down in a couple of hours. The wily Indian knew that he was anxious to get home to D'lise, and the deer that each of them carried on their shoulders was more than enough for one hunt.
Well, Big Beaver's silent harassment wasn't going to work. He'd stay with the brave until twilight arrived; then he was heading home. It was close to that time when the Indian shot the head off a wild turkey and reluctantly said he guessed it was time to head for home.
Kane did not let his relief show. If he did, he'd be in for good-humored gibes until they parted company. Big Beaver was an expert when it came to taunting a person: a gentle jabbing for a friend, a vicious slicing of the tongue for an enemy.
They soon came to where the trail branched. They paused there to take leave of each other. "I have enjoyed your company, friend," Big Beaver said, then added with a grin, "Hurry on home to your little dove."
"And the same to you, you ornery cuss," Kane answered and walked on.
A gray gloaming hung over the cabin as Kane approached it. Night was only minutes away. He frowned when he saw Raven sitting on her rock, waiting for him. He hadn't given the woman a thought in his absence, had actually forgotten that she more or less still lived with him.
His eyes went past her to the cabin, surprised that no candlelight shone in the window.
"Why is the cabin in darkness?" he asked Raven, not bothering to greet her first.
Although Raven raged inside at the slight, her stoic features didn't give away the fact. She shrugged indifferently. "I have not lit the candles yet."
There was a sudden uneasiness about Kane. Had Raven driven D'lise away? He took a step toward her. "What do you mean, you haven't lit the candles yet? Where is D'lise?"
"The white woman is not here," Raven answered, then watched him closely as she tacked on, "She go away with storekeeper from the village."
Kane's heart lurched and beat painfully against his ribs. D'lise had left him. She had gone off with the educated man with whom she had more in common. Why would she stay with a crude, ignorant trapper? He lifted bleak eyes to his shabby little cabin, realizing that it wasn't much better than a cave. Why had he thought that she would be content in it?
But she had seemed content, he told himself, a dejected droop to his shoulders as he walked on to the barn, the slain deer riding his shoulders. She smiled a lot, even burst into song sometimes as she went about cooking their meals or feeding her hens or milking the cow.
An hour later, when Kane pushed open the cabin door, Hound bounded across the floor to greet him, licking his hands and wagging his tail wildly. Then a feline hiss from the rafters overhead sent a wave of relief over him. D'lise wasn't gone for good. She would never go off and leave her beloved pet.
Picking up a flaming twig from the fireplace, Kane lit the candle in the middle of the table and saw the note D'lise had propped up against a bouquet of goldenrods placed in a tin of water.
It took but a glance to read the single sentence and his relief turned to anger. D'lise hadn't left him yet, but Samuel Majors was working on it. The minute his back was turned, the man had come sniffing around.
His eyes fell on the two books D'lise had placed in her yarn basket. He picked up the top one and opened it to the fly page. It was hard not to toss it into the fire when he saw the storekeeper's name boldly written across the page. He placed the book back on top of the yarn, and as he stared unseeing into the fire he realized with a suddenness that took his breath away that desire wasn't all he felt for D'lise Alexander. He had fallen in love with her. That tender feeling had started from the moment he'd seen her bravely trying to fight the obese Rufus off her thin body. He had loved her the night he had tended to the belt lashes on her back, scared to his soul that she would die from the fever that burned her skin.
It had all been in vain, the reasons he'd given himself that she would never mean any more to him than any of the other young women of his acquaintance. He had even gone so far as keeping Raven with him, a buffer against the beautiful girl with the dark blue eyes. Like all the rest, that had backfired on him also. The Indian woman could no longer rouse him.
"Samuel Majors," Kane muttered, taking clean buckskins from a peg next to one that held a dress of D'lise's, "you're in for one hell of a fight if you think you're gonna take her away from me." He grabbed a towel and a bar of soap and left the cabin.
As he strode swiftly toward the small stream, Raven hurried after him. "I will bathe with you," she panted, keeping up with his long strides.
"Do as you please," Kane growled back at her, "but you're wastin' your time if you think anything else is gonna happen."
Her face flushed and her eyes shooting sparks, Raven grabbed his arm and spun him around to face her. "You go after the white woman, huh?"
"Yes, I go after the white woman."
"You are a fool, trapper. She wants storekeeper. She all smiles and laughter when they rode away."
Kane tore himself free of her clutching fingers and hurried on, telling himself that D'lise shared smiles and laughter with him also. His inner voice whispered, Ah, but would she want to share the rest of her life with you? Share your bed?
Share his bed, he thought as he stripped away his sweat-stained clothing and stepped into the stream. Therein lay the problem. Would he ever be able to erase the deep fear D'lise had of men? She knew only of the pain and degradation that had always been visited on her aunt in the marriage bed. She had no idea that there were few men like Rufus Enger.
Raven wheeled around and walked off as he sat down in the deepest part of the river branch and began soaping his hair. Scrubbing his long fingers through the thick, blond-streaked growth, he determined that if it took a life's work he would teach D'lise to trust and love him, to derive pleasure instead of pain from his body.
Back in the cabin again, Kane quickly shaved, nicking his jaw in his hurry. After pulling a comb through his damp hair a few times, he left the small room and went to saddle Snowy. Raven watched him mount the stallion a moment later and ride off in the direction of the village.
The desire for revenge burned in her eyes.
Chapter Eleven
Kane pulled the stallion to a halt in the shadow of a heavily branched cedar, well out of the light spilling from the church. Dismounting, he walked to the window and looked in. His eyes went unerringly to D'lise, and he swore savagely under his breath. There were so many men, trappers and farmers, gathered round her, he marveled that she hadn't been crushed.
And she had never looked more beautiful, more desirable. Her face glowed, her red lips smiled, and her black curls tumbled around her shoulders. A picture of another woman surrounded by eager men floated before him. She had looked the same way, all excited by the male attention, her eyes promising them heaven.
For a moment, Kane's intention of making D'lise his own wavered. Would she do to him what Uncle Buck's wife had done to him? Would she cheat on him, rip him apart inside?
No, by God, she wouldn't. His hands clenched into fists. He would be strong where his uncle had been weak. He'd beat the living hell out of any man who even looked at D'lise with desire in his eyes.
His gaze was drawn to the preacher standing in front of the room, holding up a box with a red ribbon on it. The men were bidding on it, and from all the shouting going on around D'lise, he knew it was her box supper that was causing so much excitement.
"I'll put a stop to that right now," he muttered, and strode through t
he open door just as Reverend House was calling excitedly, "Seven dollars, do I hear eight?"
Not slowing his pace as he made for the group of men around D'lise, he called sharply and clearly, "I bid ten dollars." All eyes swung to him. The cold fire gleaming in his eyes dared any man to over-bid him.
The room grew so quiet the plaintive call of a whippoorwill was heard clearly in the night air. Ignoring the simmering tension, Kane reached into his shirt pocket and handed over the money to cover his bid. Then, to D'lise's incredulous surprise, he caught her by the arm and steered her through the staring people and on out the door.
"Kane Devlin," she cried, "what do you think you're doing?" She struggled to free herself from his steel grip, but his fingers didn't loosen their hold until Kane had transferred both hands under her arms and lifted her onto Snowy's back. Before she could catch her breath, he was up behind her, an arm clamped across her waist. With a whack of his heel on the stallion, they were galloping away.
D'lise burned with anger and embarrassment, but knew it would be useless to try to express herself over the noise of thundering hooves and the whistling wind they created.
"But just wait until we get home," she silently told herself.
To add to her anger and irritation, the first thing D'lise saw as they approached the cabin was Raven sitting on her damned rock. The woman reminded her of a scavenger, sitting around waiting to pick her bones.
Kane drew rein in front of the cabin, and before he could assist her out of the saddle, D'lise slid to the ground and ran inside. She paced back and forth, barely able to contain herself as she waited for Kane to stable the stallion and return to the cabin.
He had no right to take her home as if she were a youngster who had disobeyed a parent! She was an adult, for heaven's sake, able to make up her own mind about what she wanted to do.
And she had been having such a good time. She paused in her pacing to stare down into the flames of the fireplace. It was true that the young unmarried women had only been coolly polite, but the older married ones had been nice and friendly. She had been invited to a corn husking party, two quilting bees, and to join the women's little group that met every Friday at the church.
It had all been so wonderful; then he had to come along and spoil it.
D'lise had worked herself into a fine rage by the time Kane walked into the cabin and slammed the door behind him. For a moment, they glared at each other like two wild animals ready to go for each other's throats. Hound crawled under the bed and Scrag leapt up on a rafter, spitting and hissing at Kane.
Without warning, D'lise slammed her first on the table. "Why did you jerk me away from the social like I was a misbehaving child?"
Kane's stormy, slate-colored eyes narrowed, and the flecks of gray in them were like chips of ice. "Because you were acting like one. Flauntin' yourself, ruinin' your reputation."
"I did not flaunt myself! I acted like all the other single girls did. Better than some of them, but I didn't see them jerked home by angry fathers."
"It's different in your case," Kane shot back. "You're prettier than they are and people will gossip about you." Lowering his tone a bit, he said, "I don't want you ever goin' anywhere again without me. I must protect your reputation."
"What about some things that I want?" D'lise leaned across the table, her eyes flashing.
"What in the hell is it you want?" Kane glared back at her. "I've given you everything you've asked for and will continue to do so."
"I want Raven away from here. Away from the cabin, away from the barn. I'm sick to death of smelling her stench in the cabin, in the barn—and on you!" By the time she was finished with her wants, D'lise was practically yelling.
"Now just a damn minute," Kane yelled back. "You've never smelled her on me—I made sure of that."
D'lise's only answer was a toss of her head, although she knew what Kane said was true. He always smelled of good clean outdoors, but she was too angry to admit it.
Slowly it sank into Kane's mind what D'lise had demanded. His pulse raced. By all that was holy, could she be jealous of Raven? It sure as hell sounded like it.
His face softened, and the lines of strain disappeared. Then, his breathing quick and ragged, he asked, "How long have you wanted her gone, D'lise?"
Unaware of how closely he watched her, how important her answer was to him, D'lise answered what was in her heart. "Almost from the first time I saw her. She watches me all the time with her black eyes, as if she knows something that I don't know, something that will be harmful to me." After a slight pause, she added with her head bent, "And I don't like staying alone in the cabin at night."
Kane's spirits soared. Was the saying that she wanted him with her? But not necessarily in her bed, his inner voice cautioned. Maybe she is only frightened of being alone at night.
Kane ignored the warning. He preferred to think that she wanted him with her because she was beginning to care for him. "We must talk," he said softly, "but first can I have something to eat? I'm about starved."
Amusement quirked D'lise's lips as she took a plate off the shelf and walked over to the fireplace. "You should have taken the box supper you paid so dearly for. It had fried chicken in it."
Kane looked at her in disbelief as she placed beans and ham before him. "Are you tellin' me that you killed one of your hens?"
"Of course not." D'lise looked at him as if he were stupid. "Ellen made up my supper." She sat down at the table. "Wasn't that nice of her?"
"How did that come about?" Kane asked after swallowing a hearty mouthful of his supper.
"The day after you went hunting, she and Samuel came to visit…" In a few sentences D'lise had told him what had led up to her going to the social.
Kane said no more as he cleaned his plate, but a lot of dark thoughts were running through his mind. Samuel Majors had lost no time moving in on D'lise, and there would be others beating a path to his cabin.
Well, he'd put a stop to that before it started.
When Kane had finished off his supper with a piece of pie and was drinking a cup of coffee, he said quietly, "I'll go talk to Raven in a minute. I'm going to send her away."
When relief glowed in D'lise's eyes, he held up a hand. "There's more." When D'lise looked at him questioningly, he continued. "You do realize that with her gone, our neighbors are gonna gossip about us livin' here together, both of us single. You'll probably lose the women's respect." He looked away from her as he told his lie.
Surprise, concern, then disappointment chased across D'lise's face. She lifted troubled eyes to Kane. "Must she stay then?"
"No. There is a solution if you'll go for it."
"Oh, I'm sure I will," D'lise answered hopefully. "What is it?"
"We can get married."
Kane wondered how much bigger the blue eyes could get as D'lise stared at him. What was she thinking?
She was thinking, in a bewildered way, of many things. She did not want to lose her new home, no matter that it was one room with a dirt floor. It was hers to rule without any interference from anyone. Kane gave her free rein to do as she pleased.
But marriage? She had sworn never to get trapped in that institution. Just thinking of going to bed with a man made her shake as if with the ague. Could she make herself bear it? Kane did seem to be a kind man. He had never so much as raised his voice to her—well, tonight he had for some reason. For her own good, she imagined. But she had seen evidence of the violence that lay beneath the surface—the way he had driven his knife into Rufus's shoulder without a blink of the eye.
But certainly she could no longer tolerate having Raven a part of their life. She felt a jabbing around her heart every time the two of them went off to the barn at night. She could not even let herself think of what went on between them.
D'lise lifted her eyes from her clenched hands, and while Kane held his breath, she said in a voice so low he could barely hear her, "If marriage is the only alternative, I guess we'd better get married."
"You'll never regret it, D'lise." Kane let his breath out and stroked a hand down her cheek. He let it drop when she sat back, out of his reach. He was going to have one hell of a time coaxing her into making love with him, he thought wryly.
He would take one step at a time, he told himself, and the first step was to get them safely married as soon as possible. He stood up. "I'll talk to Reverend House tomorrow, set the date for next Saturday. If that's all right with you."
Next Saturday, D'lise thought in near panic. That was only seven days away. Seven more nights of sleeping alone, and after that she would be sharing her bed with a husband… for the rest of her days. She commanded her pulse to slow down, to show Kane a calm face, devoid of dread.
"Saturday will be fine," she said, a slight quaver in her voice.
Kane nodded. "I'll send Raven on her way now." At the door he turned and gave her a boyish smile. "Can I roll up in my blankets here by the fire tonight? It's gettin' a little cool in the barn."
D'lise couldn't resist smiling back at him. "You may, if you can make Hound move over. He's pretty much taken over the hearth."
Kane didn't find Raven waiting for him in the barn as he had expected. He didn't know that she had lurked around the window, listening to his conversation with D'lise, her face growing ugly with the hatred she felt for the white woman. She had known this was coming, had sensed it from the beginning.
When inside the cabin the talk turned to marriage, she had clutched her blanket tighter around her shoulders and taken the path that led to the valley and to a man who would welcome her.
"But you have not seen the last of me, white bitch," she muttered darkly as she hurried along, laying her plans.
When Kane couldn't find Raven anywhere, he decided to walk around a bit, to think and savor his victory. It hadn't been all that hard to convince D'lise to marry him. Maybe it wouldn't be as hard as he thought to make love to her. He knew that although his kiss had frightened her, it had also aroused her. If he went slowly with her, had patience, that lovely body would be his.
