"Emma," Ridge said, his warm breath fanning across her cheek. "We should get some rest, too."
She nodded jerkily and withdrew her hand from his sleeve. "It's been a long day," she managed to say. "I'll sleep with Chayton."
"Good idea."
He crawled over to the other pile of buffalo hides, pulled off his moccasins, and removed his coat. He slid between the thick skins and turned his head toward the tipi wall.
Emma's palms moistened, urging her to glide down beside Ridge's hard body and join with him. They would both enjoy pleasuring the other, and even just after one night together, Emma found she missed sleeping with him spooned behind her with an arm draped around her waist.
She sighed and tugged off her moccasins, then lay beside her son. For the first time in five months, she could sleep knowing Chayton was alive and well.
Ridge awoke, instantly alert, but heard nothing but the wind whispering through the budding trees and low snores emanating from nearby lodges. It took him a moment to figure out it was the absence of sound—the drums and chanting—that had awakened him.
The fire in their tipi had burned down and a chill seeped in. Ridge took a deep breath, preparing himself for the cold air, and threw back the heavy hides. He added some wood from the small pile beside the pit and watched a tiny flame flicker to life, only to die and struggle to return. He leaned down and blew gently across the embers, which flared and the added wood burst into flame. This time it remained alive, and Ridge held his cool hands above the growing fire.
A movement from the other bed caught his attention and he spotted Chayton crawling out from between the buffalo hides.
Ridge intercepted the boy before he could slip out of the tipi, and lifted him into his arms. "Where're you going, little fella?"
Chayton pointed down at himself.
Ridge grinned wryly. "I'll go with you, pard," he said quietly, not wanting to wake Emma.
The boy bounced in his arms. "Wana."
"Okay, now." Ridge swiftly carried Chayton outside and set him on his feet. The boy lifted his tunic out of the way and aimed toward a bush. While he relieved himself, Ridge shrugged and did the same.
Ridge closed his trousers and adjusted Chayton's tunic, in the pre-dawn's gloom. Another hour or two and the Lakota would be rising.
"Chayton," came Emma's fearful call.
"C'mon, cub, we'd best get back inside before your mama has a fit," Ridge said.
Chayton only yawned and knuckled his sleep-filled eyes.
Ridge took the boy's hand and led him back into the lodge, where Emma was readying to leave, her expression frantic. She gasped and dropped to her knees in front of
Chayton, hugging him close and kissing him.
"You frightened me, Chayton. I didn't know where you were," Emma said hoarsely.
"He had to go outside so I went with him," Ridge explained. "I thought you were asleep."
With her arms still around the boy, she gazed up at him. Fear filled her eyes. "I woke up and he was gone. I thought—" Her voice cracked.
"It's all right, Emma," Ridge reassured her awkwardly, not liking the haunted expression in her eyes. "Chayton's just fine."
She bowed her head, revealing the pale skin at the back of her slender neck. Ridge remembered how sweet her soft skin had tasted there, and her breathy moans of pleasure as she'd begged for more. He dug his fingernails into his palms to keep from reaching for her, to offer her comfort, and anything else she might need. Or want.
"After I was brought back to my parents' ranch, I had nightmares. I couldn't save him no matter how hard I tried." Emma's voice was muffled by Chayton's shoulder. The boy protested her snug grip and she immediately loosened her hold. She drew a hand across her eyes and Ridge could see the effort it took to smile at her son. "Sleep," she said in Lakota to her son.
As Emma resettled Chayton and herself in their bed, Ridge slid back between his own furs and laid on his side, facing them. She sang quietly to her son, and Ridge closed his eyes to listen to her achingly sweet voice. Just as with reading, Emma's singing was easy on his ears and made him recall the only time in his life when he'd felt loved and protected.
Once Chayton's breathing evened out, Emma's song faded away. A hollow yearning filled Ridge, along with bittersweet memories and wishes that were best left locked away.
"I had one of his moccasins in my pocket when the army took me from the village."
Emma's confiding voice startled Ridge out of his musings. He opened his eyes and focused on the dim oval of her face.
"I managed to keep it hidden from my parents," she continued. "But every night when I'd go to bed I'd take it out of its hiding place and hold it against my chest, imagining I was holding my son. It kept me from going crazy."
Merely thinking of Emma's anguish made Ridge's gut ache. He could picture her in her room late at night, the tiny piece of hide clutched to her breast.
"Why didn't you tell your family about him?"
She laughed softly but bitterly. "What do you think my father would've said if I had told him?"
Ridge could only imagine, and what he did imagine wasn't fit for a lady's ears.
"I'm fearful about taking Chayton back there," she confessed.
Ridge levered himself up on an elbow. "You're planning on taking him back to your father's ranch?"
"Of course. He's my son."
"He's Lakota."
"He's as much white as he is Lakota."
As much as Ridge understood her dilemma, he also knew how she and her child would be shunned. He had personally seen how white women with half-Indian children were treated. "Have you thought this through, Emma? I mean, folks ain't going to take to him."
"I'll protect him," Emma said and Ridge could almost see her chin jut out stubbornly.
And who'll protect you?
"What about school? No one's going to let a half-breed attend school." Ridge deliberately used the slur others would use as a dirty word.
"I'll teach him myself." He could feel the burn of Emma's glare across the lodge floor. "Why are you saying these things? Once I found my son, did you think I would just abandon him again?"
"He's happy here."
"He's my son! Where I go, he goes." Emma rolled over, turning away from Ridge, and effectively ending their conversation.
Ridge lowered himself back to his bed. Emma was serious about raising Chayton in a world that had little compassion for someone like him. Couldn't she see how much better off he was here with people who loved and cared for him?
Ridge was intimately familiar with how hurtful other children could be to someone who was "different." He wouldn't wish that kind of childhood on anyone, especially an innocent boy like Chayton.
Closing his eyes, Ridge tried to sleep, but found slumber elusive. His eyes flew open as another thought struck— would the People even allow one of their own to be taken away? Even by the boy's own mother? The Lakota treated their children as children of the tribe, and they belonged to everyone, not just the parents who brought them into the world. Children were raised together and women looked after all of them, regardless of blood relationship. Mothers allowed other babies in addition to their own to suckle from their breasts.
Ridge gnashed his teeth. If he'd known Emma's real motive for finding her band, he would never have allowed her to bribe him with one hundred dollars. Chayton was better off here than he would be in a world that would treat him no better— probably even worse—than a stray dog.
Chapter 12
Emma straightened from her task of scraping an antelope hide and stretched her back, hearing a collection of pops along her spine. She'd forgotten how toilsome the day-to-day drudgery could be, but she was determined not to be a burden.
When Fast Elk had handed Emma over to Talutah all those years ago, she had vowed to carry her own weight in spite of being frightened and homesick. The tall, grave Indian had saved Emma's life and she owed him for that. However, as she gained more and more knowledge
of the language and their ways, she realized she wasn't a slave, but an adopted daughter. And dutiful daughters were expected to help their mothers with everyday tasks.
However, after spending months away from this life, she ached from her exertions, but being able to look up and see Chayton playing with the other children was more than worth the labor. He and a handful of boys and girls had sticks they used to hit rocks back and forth. Soon, the boys would begin the first stage of their training. Chayton and the others would learn how to trail game, starting with squirrels and rabbits, then they'd begin to practice with
their bows to bring down those same small animals they tracked, as well as birds and rodents. By wrestling with his playmates, Chayton would learn how to defend himself and how to defeat an enemy in hand-to-hand combat. All of his fighting skills would be learned under the guise of games, and in a dozen years or less, Chayton would join the ranks of the warriors for his first raid.
Emma used the back of her hand to push aside strands of sweat-dampened hair that stuck to her brow. She would take Chayton away before he even began his training; her son would not die as young as his father had.
"You have become soft like a wasicu," Talutah teased.
Emma smiled at her adopted mother who was chopping tubers into the venison stew that would simmer above the fire pit all day. "Yes. It has been a long time since I've prepared a hide."
Talutah knelt beside her to help. "Your world is different than ours."
When Emma understood enough of the Lakota language to follow a conversation, she'd been intrigued and a little shocked by their beliefs. At the time, she'd been too shy and wary to speak of her own world. Now, however, it saddened her to realize how far apart their cultures were. There seemed to be no middle ground and she was fearful the Indians would lose their way of life, which relied heavily upon open range and wild game, especially buffalo.
Emma sighed and continued her backbreaking work. Shimmering Water, whom Emma had known before, joined her after Talutah left. Emma described her return to her parents and subsequent escape to find Chayton.
Then their talk turned to gossip, both serious and amusing, and the work didn't seem quite as difficult.
One time Emma glanced up and saw Ridge playing a game of dice with three men, including Fast Elk. She couldn't help but notice with a note of pride, that Ridge had the most sticks piled in front of him. He caught her eye and winked, and her cheeks bloomed with heat. Her reaction didn't go unnoticed by the other woman.
"He is handsome for a wasicu," Shimmering Water commented, elbowing Emma. "I would take him to my skins if my husband asked it of me." She batted her eyes in Ridge's direction.
It wasn't uncommon for a husband to share his wife with a visitor if he wanted to impress him or make him feel welcome. Emma had never been comfortable with that practice and fortunately, Enapay had never asked it of her. She wondered, however, what her reaction would've been if he had. She suspected Enapay wouldn't have liked her response.
She glanced at her friend, who had smooth skin with almond-shaped brown eyes and glossy black hair. Would Ridge accept her company if given a chance? What man wouldn't?
The thought of him lying with Shimmering Water stabbed her heart. She didn't want to imagine him with any other woman, bestowing those same gentle touches as he had given to her with his lips and hands. She didn't want another woman to feel him enter her body as she had rejoiced in feeling him deep within her. She had no right to be possessive, but couldn't deny the jealousy that made her fists clench and her head pound.
Shimmering Water sighed. "His mouth is very nice and I have never seen eyes such as his—the color of a night sky." She ducked her head closer to Emma. "He would look very good in only a breechclout, would he not?"
Emma's gaze traveled to Ridge's backside and pictured him in what Shimmering Water described. She mentally shook herself and returned her attention to her task, refusing to be drawn in. The fact was she didn't want to share Ridge with anyone.
The sun was high when the children and men drifted toward the kettles over the fire pits. Women returned to their tipis to eat stew or soup. Chayton dashed over to Emma's fire and the stew Talutah had made that morning. Emma could almost hear her son's stomach growling. Smiling, she filled a bowl for him and then one for herself. She broke off chunks of flat bread Talutah had made earlier and left on a stone close to the fire. Sitting beside her son, she asked him about his morning as they ate.
When Ridge joined them, Emma was refilling Chayton's bowl. She readied one for Ridge and handed it to him.
"Thank you." He slipped his hat off his head to hang down his back by the drawstring, and sat across the fire from them.
"You're welcome," Emma said, glad he'd come to their fire instead of going to someone else's, like Shimmering Water's. "You seem to have made yourself at home."
He shrugged and swallowed before answering, "In some ways, the Lakota haven't changed at all. They play the same games and brag about victories. But in other ways, they've changed a lot. There's more distrust, and there's more talk of war against the whites."
Emma nodded, having noticed the same changes herself just between the time she lived with them and now. It was sad and frightening, as well as inescapable.
The sun appeared from behind a cloud and caught Ridge's long thick hair, exposing strands of reddish-gold among the maple-brown. Emma tried to imagine him in short hair, like her father's, but couldn't. Before living with the Lakota, she'd daydreamed about beaux with trimmed mustaches and wearing suits and opera hats. Now when she allowed herself to woolgather, she thought of Ridge Madoc with his unfashionably long hair, moccasins, wool trousers, suspenders, buckskin jacket, and slouch hat. Ridge, with his midnight blue eyes, that when turned in her direction, could make her knees feel like honey.
Chayton's empty bowl slipped from his hands, and Emma smiled fondly at his drooped head and closed eyes.
"All that running around tuckered him out," Ridge said quietly. "I'll carry him inside if you'd like."
"Yes, please," Emma replied.
Ridge scooped the child into his arms and ducked into the opening of the tipi. Emma followed but stayed by the entrance with crossed arms as she watched Ridge settle the boy on a pile of skins. He tucked a flung-out thin arm under a hide, then adjusted the blanket under Chayton's chin and smoothed his hand across the boy's hair. Emma wasn't surprised by the man's tenderness—he'd never been anything but gentle with her. Except for the time he'd tied her up, but she didn't blame him for that.
He rose gracefully and Emma backed out of the lodge.
"Most of the children will sleep for an hour or two, then they'll be back at it," Emma commented.
Ridge didn't reply but picked up the bowls they'd used and hunkered down beside a pail of water sitting in front of the tipi. He ducked the dirty dishes into the water to wash them.
"I should do that," Emma said.
He grinned mischievously, making him appear not much older than Chayton. "Worried your friends'll scold you for making your man do a woman's chore?"
Her face warmed. "You're not my man," she responded tartly.
"No, but everyone sees us that way."
His gaze roamed across her, and her body responded as if he'd touched her intimately.
"Does that bother you?" he asked huskily.
"Does it bother you?"
"Why should it? You're a beautiful woman, Winona."
His drawl made her Indian name sounded oddly lyrical and Emma's heart tripped in her breast. Here, in the middle of a Lakota village, the white world with all its stuffy rules and harsh prejudices seemed a million miles away. It would be so easy for Emma to ask Ridge to share her furs, but they had to someday return to their own world. They'd already gone beyond civilized boundaries in the cabin; she didn't dare risk it again.
"Thank you," she said stiffly. "But you and I both know it's not that way." She turned away to needlessly stir the remains of the stew. "If you're offered a woma
n, don't turn her down on account of me."
Strong fingers gripped her shoulders, startling her. She hadn't even heard him approach.
He turned her around to face him. "I don't want any woman but you."
Emma gasped at the heat in his words and the need in his flashing eyes. She stared at his lips, his mouth, and fought the hunger in her own body. One touch, one look— that was all it took for Ridge to set her on fire. She hadn't bargained on her attraction growing after they'd yielded to their passion.
She trembled as she fought the overriding desire, but knew it would be a losing battle if Ridge didn't release her. It would be so easy to remain in his arms and be led into their lodge and join their bodies upon the soft skins. But Emma was under no illusions—if they were back in Sunset, Ridge wouldn't be treating her this way.
"Are you willing to marry me?" she asked, amazed that her voice remained steady.
Ridge released her as if she were scorching hot and growled a curse. "I ain't ready to get hitched."
At least not to me, she added silently with a stab of remorse.
"Then we'll not be lying together again either," she stated.
"Fine," he said curtly. He tugged his hat onto his head. "Fast Elk invited me to race this afternoon. I'd best go ready Paint."
Ridge's stride was fluid, but Emma noticed his clenched jaw and knew she'd made him angry.
She sagged. She'd never force him to marry her for what they'd done or what they might've done again if he had pressed her. But she wasn't strong enough to deny him, and she hated herself for that weakness. If he'd kissed her, she would've been lost, so she'd gambled on his honor. She'd expected his rejection, but it still hurt.
Terribly.
In the Lakota culture, men were the hunters and warriors, and every activity they engaged in was geared toward being better hunters and better warriors. Emma had seen the men race their ponies countless times in the past and she'd long since lost her fascination with their riding skills. However, knowing Ridge was to participate, Emma made certain she faced the direction of the meadow where the race would take place.
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