Wild Dawn

by Cait London

  The boy took a tentative step away from his father toward the cow and squealed in delight as Laddie ran toward the sheep.

  “Da! Eat!” Jack cried as he started after the dog, his tiny legs almost at a run.

  Delighted with the boy’s antics, Regina laughed and clapped her hands. “Oh, he’s lovely.”

  Without thinking, she stood on tiptoe to plop her straw bonnet on MacGregor’s head. Lifting her skirts, she ran after the boy.

  Lilly walked gracefully through the cabin’s open door and smiled shyly at MacGregor. She nodded politely and stopped near him.

  “You are the keeper of Miss Violet’s love,” she singsonged in a melodic, soft tone. “Miss Violet’s heart’s delight.”

  “ ‘Heart’s delight’?” MacGregor jerked off the bonnet and looked away, shielding his high color. He cleared his throat, trying to catch his breath. In one of Violet’s books, he’d read the word, “swoon”. Now he thought he might do just that.

  Lilly smiled impishly. “One is happy for Miss Violet. One is happy you have come for the sun of your days and the moon of your nights.”

  He cleared his throat again, turning to unpack the mules with shaking hands. Over his shoulder MacGregor said quietly, “There’s an English hunting party not far from here. I don’t want Violet left alone, even for a walk.”

  He handed the bundle of Jack’s cloths to her. “A big man named Tall Tom is their guide. He’s missing a toe and walks odd. Missing an eye, too. There’s two Englishmen in the party. Both with light hair. They’ll take Violet if they can.... Just as soon as Jack’s settled in, I’m going after them.”

  Lilly’s hand trembled as it lay on his sleeve. “But you cannot. You are her heart—”

  That instant Jack’s delighted squeal erupted behind them, his fists filled with Regina’s red bead necklace. Balanced on her hip, he grinned and raised the beads to his father like a trophy. “Da.”

  Regina’s husky voice was dangerously quiet as she walked back to them. “MacGregor... Lilly. Perhaps you might include me in this conversation.”

  Jack bounced on her hip, tugging at her braid as she looked up at MacGregor. “What’s this about an English hunting party and Tall Tom?”

  MacGregor turned slowly, his expression hardening. “You’ve learned how to hunt, haven’t you, Violet? Enough to walk without making noise and creep up behind a man’s back.”

  Deep purple eyes shadowed by her lashes met his. “Quite. Stalking game and spearing fish have broadened my training as a lady. You’ve come here to protect me, haven’t you? I am not a damsel in distress now, MacGregor Two Hearts. Nor are you my knight,” she stated flatly.

  MacGregor ran the flat of his hand across his stomach. “Lilly, why don’t you take Jack over to the cow? He likes to pick grass and feed her... watch he doesn’t get under her feet.”

  Regina watched him intently. Her hand went to her stomach, flattening protectively over it. “Two Englishmen that I know have reason to be hunting me. Both have light hair—Lord Covington and my father, the Marquess of Fordington.”

  Stripping off his shirt, MacGregor handed it to her. “I’m proud of this shirt, Violet. Finest thing I’ve ever owned.”

  He began unloading the mules’ packs. “Covington and your father have paired up, hunting across the mountains and paying for word of a purple-eyed, half-pint Englishwoman.... They’ll turn up sooner or later. That’s why I’m heading them off.”

  Regina carefully folded his shirt. Faced with his broad back, she tried to avoid staring at the rippling muscles beneath the tanned, scarred skin. When he bent, loosening a rope, his trousers slipped fractionally from his waist to expose a pale strip of flesh.

  Regina’s mouth went dry; unwillingly her eyes followed the hard shape of his buttocks and long, muscular legs.

  In the meadow the sheep bleated, and Jack squealed. A small hawk soared through the blue sky, and the cow lowed softly. The stream gurgled nearby, passing over a riffle, and her heart stopped.

  Forcing herself to concentrate on MacGregor’s mission, she cleared her throat. “Heading them off... exactly what does that mean?”

  “I’ll do what I have to do.”

  “You’re hungry for the taste of blood, are you, MacGregor? After all, it’s been some time since you shot those men who kidnapped me, hasn’t it?”

  When he didn’t answer and continued to unpack the animals, she hit his shoulder.

  MacGregor’s hands gripped Kansas’s saddle, then placed it over a sack of grain. He straightened to his full height, hooked his thumbs in his belt, and stared down at her. A muscle moved in his cheek, sliding down his throat to tighten across his chest. “What do you want me to do, Violet?”

  “You will let me deal with my father.”

  “You’re asking me to be less than a man.... That sounds like an order,” he returned, the dark skin covering his high cheekbones tightening.

  “It is. Manhood is not measured by killing, but by honor. If you kill my father....”

  For the space of a heartbeat he stared down at her. Anger flickered beneath his lashes before he returned to his work. “We’ll wait it out, then. Together.”

  Regina’s trembling fingers crushed the cotton shirt. She ached to smooth MacGregor’s strong back, the tense cords running beneath his hard jaw. Because of loving Jack, he’d plucked her from that deathly cabin. He wanted his son to have a woman’s soft touch, a memory he’d been denied.

  MacGregor. A mistreated orphan, now a grown man, seeking to protect those he loved. Scars from the mission beating glistened in the sun, and suddenly his skin rippled, beneath her palm.

  MacGregor tensed and straightened slowly as her hand skimmed across his shoulders, following the hard contours. Her fingertip circled the healed bullet wound, then traced a long ragged scar slowly down to his lower back. Across the width of a heavily padded shoulder, she traced a row of scars—the mark of the cat she’d killed.

  A squirrel ran up a juniper tree, chattering to his playful mate. In that instant Regina realized her fingers rested on MacGregor’s tense back. She jerked her hand back, crushing his shirt to her chest.

  He turned slowly, the sun catching blue sparks in his black hair. “Touch me again,” he ordered rawly, his eyes gleaming beneath his lashes. “Cure me of this ache—”

  “MacGregor—” Regina edged back, frightened by the dark flush riding his stark, hungry face.

  Taking her wrist, he placed her palm over his heavily thudding heart. “There. Feel that. You do that to me,” he whispered huskily. “I’m flesh and blood, not ink and paper scrawled with pretty words of dreams and love.”

  ~**~

  At sunset, a mist settled over the stream winding through the large meadow.

  MacGregor tossed the last piece of chopped wood to the pile and sank the ax into a tree stump with all the force of his frustration. Regina had kept to herself in the house while doing her chores. Jack toddled happily at her heels, receiving her hugs and kisses freely.

  MacGregor scowled at the lacy underwear drying across the bushes and ran his hand across his bare chest. Regina’s slender fingers had rummaged momentarily through the hair covering his chest before she’d run away into the house.

  Lilly had brought him roast rabbit and bread for lunch while Regina scrubbed Jack’s cloths on a washboard. She spread them over the brushes with her lacy underwear. MacGregor stared at a delicate scrap of lace, his mouth drying.

  He’d wanted to kiss Regina until she clung to him. Wanted to tell her how his heart filled with happiness just thinking about the new baby.

  Jack toddled out of the cabin’s open door and promptly tripped. His wail brought Regina running to scoop him up in her arms. Balancing him on her hip, she cooed and kissed until Jack stopped crying.

  “Hell of a thing to be jealous of my own son,” MacGregor muttered darkly, stacking the wood.

  “What did you say?” she asked, turning to him.

  “You’ll spoil the boy,” he return
ed tightly, looking more closely at Jack. “You’ve put him in a dress.”

  Sensing his father’s dark mood, the boy clung to Regina and stared at MacGregor drowsily.

  “Hmm.” She studied Jack, then kissed his damp hair. “He’s bathed and dressed for bed. Lilly and I stitched him a gown—”

  “Holy sh— Take it off. He sleeps in his drawers.”

  Regina’s eyebrows lifted. “You brought him to me. We’ve agreed that I’ll keep him until you’re settled. I say he sleeps in proper night clothing. Lilly and I are making him new clothing tomorrow. For that matter, it wouldn’t hurt you to sleep in a shift if you stay inside the cabin... not that I care about your sleeping habits.”

  With that she swept Jack into the cabin and slammed the door.

  MacGregor stared at the door. Just then it opened, and Regina placed a water basin on a bench outside the cabin. She straightened, handed him a folded towel, and met his eyes evenly.

  “Your shirt is on a peg next to the door,” she stated coolly, primly. “We’ve arranged your things as best we could. We’re having griddle cakes with wild strawberries in syrup. Thank you for the cow. I’ve named her Rosebud. In the morning we’ll discuss the matter of your interference in my affairs. Because at this moment I am very, very angry with you.”

  MacGregor snared her wrist, staying her. “Damn it, Violet. You try a man’s temper. I’ll not beg for those meager kisses you dole out, nor the right to protect you—”

  Her eyebrows lifted, challenging him as she slowly drew her arm back. “I’m perfectly capable of dealing with my life, MacGregor. You are not my black knight, protecting me from a demon sweeping out of the marshes. You would do well to remember that.”

  With that she gathered the laundry and returned to the house. The door closed solidly in his face.

  Regina’s cool, polite tone answered his knock on the plank door a few minutes later. “Yes? Who is it?”

  MacGregor took a deep, steadying breath. If Regina had set her mind to straining his patience, she had succeeded. “MacGregor,” he said between his teeth.

  “Oh. Mr. MacGregor. How nice.... Come in. You may leave the door open,” she invited in the lofty tone of a grand dame bidding a visitor to enter her sitting room.

  MacGregor entered the small cabin cautiously. A weathered ladder hung from the rafters, neat bundles of drying flowers and plants tied to it. Blue muslin curtains hung at the new windows. Another ladder led to a loft. Regina’s china and various bottles stood on a shelf with her books. He’d been given a corner, his shirts and trousers neatly folded on a bench. His rifles and cartridges, knives and razor rested on a long shelf above Jack’s reach.

  Lilly knelt by Jack’s willow bed, patting the drowsy boy on his back and singing softly to him.

  Regina bent near a grate swung over a low fire, turning cakes on a griddle. She nodded to the rough table and chairs. “Please sit down. Lilly and Jack have eaten.

  When she came to the table, her cheeks flushed by the fire, MacGregor swallowed the deep emotion rising within him. “You’ve learned to cook.”

  “I long for a proper stove,” she returned stiffly, placing a platter of sourdough griddle cakes in front of him. “There’s no butter. But the wild strawberry syrup is delicious.”

  He inhaled slowly, savoring the scent of a home. After a moment he cleared his throat. “How are the sheep?”

  “Very well. Lilly and I sheared a good measure of wool from them. It’s washed and hung in the loft until we can experiment with dyes,” she returned stiffly. “I have a measure of copperas for setting the color.”

  He nodded, searching for words uneasily. “That’s good. Indians use clay for dye sometimes. Roots and bark. Flowers like goldenrod for yellow... barberry bush, peach leaves, onions, too. Berries for red....”

  “Birch bark set with alum is supposed to make a beautiful nankin color—”

  MacGregor caught the quick lift of her head before she averted her eyes. “In the war... a Reb granny-woman took care of me during a fever. We were out of quinine then, so she made me drink dogwood tea.... She had a loom. Used to weave all day. Kept her mind from the cannon shot in the next field.”

  Regina toyed with her fork as he continued. “A loom is a problem... but not one we can’t solve. That granny-woman’s probably took almost the whole room.”

  He glanced around the small cabin and nodded toward one end. “It’s pretty big... Wouldn’t take much to add a couple rooms back there... maybe a big porch too, so you could sit outside in the shade.”

  “I’ve thought the same. Shall we eat?”

  Regina ate voraciously. After finishing his meal, MacGregor settled back to sip his coffee and watch her.

  “Thank you for the dinner. It was good,” he said simply, noting that she had reached for another cake. He glanced at Lilly questioningly.

  The girl eyed him warily, then allowed a heavy swath of sleek hair to conceal her face. Lilly’s giggle rippled through the cabin like tinkling bells in a gentle breeze.

  Regina daintily licked a drop of syrup from her fingertips. “A salted herring or two would be lovely just now,” she murmured. “Just the thing.”

  After placing a small wooden box on the table, she took out several dried herring fillets on a plate. “There. Have one.”

  MacGregor stared at her, then grinned slowly. “Believe I’ll pass, ma’am.”

  That night Lilly slept in the loft; MacGregor counted the inches between his pallet and Regina’s bed behind the flannel sheet.

  Before dawn he left the sleeping household and walked to the creek. Standing in the knee-deep current and sluicing his hot flesh with the icy water helped ease the long, potent ache that had begun the day he took Violet MacGregor to his bed.

  ~**~

  Her hands on her waist, Regina stared at the bucket beneath the cow’s full udders. The cow turned and blinked at her with all the boredom of a seasoned royal lady at court. Her braided wreath of daisies slipped askew, and Regina sighed. “Lady Rosebud, you are every bit as difficult as that arrogant mountain laird, MacGregor.”

  The bluish-gray morning mist curled around the valley in layers at dawn, the dew dampening Regina’s skirt. She traced her trail through the heavy grass back to the cabin and thought about MacGregor. Last night he had turned restlessly on the floor pallet.

  Suddenly she’d awakened to the sound of her own crying.

  Jennifer’s cry had echoed through the night. Remember the legends. Mother to daughter—Mariah... Mariah... and the power....

  Regina had wiped her wet lashes and curled into a ball, protecting her unborn child. In her dream she’d seen a daughter with MacGregor’s jet-black eyes wrapped in the flaming color of the paisley shawl.... If she failed to remember, her daughter could lay within Mortimer-Hawkes’s cruel fist.

  MacGregor had drawn the sheet aside, staring down at her through the night’s shadows; hunger and passion burned in his black eyes. The bare light skimmed the breadth of his shoulders, the angular length of his body. “Violet?” he asked huskily. “What’s wrong?”

  She’d pretended to sleep, fighting the need to open her arms to him. Now she feared not only for herself, for her freedom, but for her child. MacGregor’s child...

  Regina gazed at the sunlit field and plucked a daisy from its stalk; she ripped it apart. What was the force binding her to MacGregor? What caused her to ache for his kiss, the strength of his body coupling with hers?

  Lifting her face to the swirling haze, Regina closed her eyes and shivered. A rippling length of silky hair slid across her flushed cheek, and she twined it around her finger. Was it his daughter, nestling in her womb, who recognized her father?

  Caressing the tight mound of her stomach nestled beneath MacGregor’s loose shirt, Regina smiled whimsically. She wanted the baby desperately; the sweet feel of Jack had strengthened her desire to hold another MacGregor baby.... She stretched and yawned, enjoying the ease of her unbound breasts for a time.

  MacG
regor, dressed only in his trousers, suddenly stepped from the mist. Rubbing his damp hair with a towel, he asked, “Wishing for Rosebud to fill the pail by herself?”

  Startled, Regina stepped backward. Her bare foot slid on the wet grass, and she half turned, her cheek brushing the warmth of MacGregor’s broad chest. Shivering, she jumped back and scowled up at him. “Gads. You should wear Rosebud’s bell.”

  She didn’t want to see his hair rumpled and damp, the sensual curve of his mouth. She didn’t want to look up into eyes stormy with desire. Nor ache to rub her palm across the night’s growth of beard covering his hard jaw....

  “I’m having a bit of a problem with Rosebud,” she explained quickly, aware that her voice quivered like a drop of dew on the tip of a leaf.

  MacGregor’s special smile slid out; the devilish, beguiling heart-stalking smile. He rummaged through the black hair on his chest, and her fingers ached to repeat the deed.

  Droplets of water clung to the hair veeing down his flat stomach. Regina stared at his unbuttoned waistband, following the muscular line of his stomach downward. Without his underdrawers, MacGregor’s heavy arousal pressed full length at the cloth.

  He followed her stare and grinned wickedly, lifting an eyebrow at her widened eyes and parted lips. “Every morning it’s the same, sweetheart. Aching for you.”

  “Gads... you’ve grown,” she whispered, unable to draw her eyes away. Nor move from the warmth of his body as he stepped nearer.

  “I’m hurting. The pain needs easing.”

  With that he bent and kissed her slowly, tasting the corners of her lips as though she were strawberries and honey. The cool mist clung to her hot face as the kiss deepened and his tongue foraged for the sweetness of hers.

  With suckling and toying and heating desire, MacGregor drew her to tiptoe, her aching breasts pressing against him.

  When at last their lips parted, Regina rested full length against him. Wide amethyst eyes met ebony as they breathed heavily, the mist sweeping over them. Startled by the emotions racing through her, Regina turned away quickly and shivered. “I... I just came to... milk.”