The Lady and the Warrior
Page 2
“Woundwort, my mother called it. This root brings healing.” He set the crock aside and smoothed a tendril of hair at her forehead. “You cannot survive alone in these mountains.”
“Reuben went hunting days ago. But he will return.” Her stomach knotted at that possibility and the thought of leaving Zane. The wonder of him and this cozy shelter he had built were as different from the life she had come to know as was Heaven from Hell. “I would give most anything never to see Reuben again.”
Zane’s gaze caressed her. “Do you wish to stay with me?”
Yearning for the love she had never known welled up inside her like the flood she’d narrowly escaped. She did not dare speak her want. “How can I, when I promised to love, honor, and obey—”
Zane finished the oath. “Until death.”
She nodded mutely, hating the words.
“And you have.”
“How?”
“Shhhh.” He bent his head and slowly covered her lips with his.
Had she even breathed until now? Surely God wouldn’t deny her one sacred kiss? The wind whistled in the trees outside the cabin as she dissolved against Zane, famished for far more than food. And how his lips fed her.
“You are paca tamsah, a beautiful woman,” he said, and slipped his arm inside the blankets. His other arm followed and he slid his hands across her bare shoulders, around her back.
Exquisite tingles followed his every touch. Leaving the covers behind, he drew her to him, his linen shirt soft against her breasts. Warm strength enveloped her.
No man had ever held her with such sublime intimacy. And this one shouldn’t be! “I can’t—” She gulped. “You mustn’t.”
“Abby,” he whispered, his breath warm in her ear. “Stay with me.”
“Aren’t you listening? I am a married woman.”
“I heard every word. You are a widow.”
She tensed in his hold. “Dear Lord, Zane. You can’t kill Reuben—”
“Not that. When you said Captain Hastings, I remembered the man I met three days ago. I never thought you would marry such an old man.”
“Desperate times. And he isn’t that ancient,” she said. “Well, perhaps in one regard.” She hesitated. “He had difficulty fulfilling his—husbandly duty.”
“Gitchee, Good,” Zane chuckled and buried his lips in the curve of her neck.
She shivered in delight and distraction under his sensuous assault. “Wait—what of this fellow you met?”
“He spoke his name as he died.”
She sucked in her breath. “From what?”
“Not my hand. Lightning struck him as he sheltered beneath a tree. “
Abby remembered the violent storm. “Thunder boomed more loudly than cannon fire during the war.”
“Yes. Thunder birds were very angry that day. Their wings beat out such fury as to shake the earth. Their eyes flashed fire. Thunder birds have freed you, my fair dove.”
She basked in the light of Zane’s eyes. “And what of the Nighthawk?”
“For many moons he has soared alone. Now he seeks a mate. For life, forever. Will you be that woman?”
Abby let her lips answer for her in a soft slow kiss.
Heaven was very good.