When Passion Calls

by Cassie Edwards

  Attired in a brief loincloth, his copper skin gleaming in the fading sunlight, Chief Gray Falcon strode square-shouldered toward his wigwam. Blue Blossom followed behind him, her eyes cast downward. She felt deceitful for having told Gray Falcon that it was Shane and Red Raven who had stolen from him.

  But she had no choice! Gray Falcon had threatened to banish her from the tribe, to wander alone through the wilderness if she did not tell everything that she had seen the previous night. The fact that she had not awakened him and told him then had angered him terribly! She did not know what to expect now. She only knew that she must obey or she would end up like Cedar Maidgone and forgotten!

  Shy and petite, Blue Blossom trailed Gray Fal-

  con inside his wigwam. She stood quietly by as he pulled his magnificent pelts from the back of the wigwam and began counting them.

  ''They took many!" he shouted, gazing at Blue Blossom with fire in his eyes.

  "I have counted them, Gray Falcon," Blue Blossom murmured. "In pelts and horses, they took exactly the amount that Trapper Dan paid bride price for Cedar Maid. That is all, Gray Falcon. Please do not be so angry. I beg of you not to be angry with me!"

  Gray Falcon tossed the pelts aside and went to Blue Blossom. "It is your innocent loveliness that saves you this time," he growled, drawing her against his hard body. "But do not make the same mistake a second time. I will throw you to the wolves."

  Blue Blossom trembled with fear. She sobbed as Gray Falcon crushed his mouth to her lips and eased her down onto his pallet of furs. Gently, his hands disrobed her.

  "Love me, Blue Blossom," he whispered, removing his loincloth. "Be my woman. I want a woman of courage. You proved that you are such a woman last night! You defied me, your chief!"

  Blue Blossom could not deny how his body and hands always affected her. Warming all over inside, she reached for his hardness probing at the juncture of her thighs and led him inside her. She offered herself to him willingly, and hated herself for such a weakness!

  She so badly wanted to ask Gray Falcon what he

  was going to do about his stolen property, but she was too afraid to ask.

  Would the revenge never stop?

  Melanie stopped her horse and buggy in front of Shane's front porch. She peered toward the pasture, then the stable, seeing no signs of Shane's return. She glanced up at the sky. The sun was gone and the moon slowly slipping up into the sky to take its place.

  Yet there was still no sign of Shane!

  "Melanie?"

  Josh's voice drew Melanie around. She looked up just as he took the last step to the ground, walking toward her.

  "Hello, Josh," Melanie said, stepping down from the buggy. She went to the back and began taking packages from it. "I went into town, to the tailor's. I got Shane's clothes."

  "Now aren't you the helpful one?" Josh said sarcastically. He smiled smugly as she brushed past him, ignoring his sarcasm.

  "The fancy clothes won't be needed, you know," he said, following her up the steps. "He's gone, Melanie. He couldn't stay away from his Indian friends."

  "We'll see, Josh," Melanie said icily. She gave him a frown over her shoulder. "I would appreciate it if you would help me with the door. Or would you rather I didn't take Shane's clothes to his room?"

  Josh shrugged and opened the door for her. "It's

  a waste of time," he said. "But go on, anyhow. Perhaps I can find something among them that suits my taste." He winked down at her. "Especially since you had a hand in choosing them."

  "Josh, before you wore what I helped choose for Shane, I would burn them first," Melanie said, her voice drawn. She stepped inside and went up the stairs to Shane's room. She placed the packages on the bed, then spun around when Josh approached her suddenly from behind.

  When Josh locked an arm about Melanie's waist and drew her around to face him, his blue eyes filled with lust, she froze inside. "Unhand me this minute, Josh Brennan," she hissed. "You know better than to expect me to appreciate being manhandled by you. I'd die first."

  "Damn it, Melanie," Josh said throatily. "What do you see in Shane that you don't see in me? God, woman, he's nothing more than a savage, raised by savages. You've known me all your life, Melanie. Doesn't that amount to something?"

  "I think that's the problem," Melanie said. "I have known you too long and too well. I know all of your faults, Josh, and there are plenty!"

  "I could give you a loving no other man would know how to give!" Josh pleaded, leaning his face closer to hers. "Let me have a chance, Melanie. Good Lord, I've waited a lifetime for you. Don't tell me I'm going to lose not only my father to my brother, but also you!"

  Melanie pushed at his chest with the palms of her hands. She smiled slowly up at him. "Why, Josh, I do believe you suspect Shane is going to

  come back home after all," she tormented him. "If not, you wouldn't be pleading your case so hard for me this evening. You would have plenty of time to plan a new strategy on how you could court and win me! But you feel pressured, don't you?"

  Josh turned abruptly away from her, then rushed to the window when he heard the approach of many horses below, coming up the long lane that led to the house. He grew cold inside and his face paled. "Goddamn it all to hell," he gasped. "Shane. It's Shane."

  Melanie felt a rush of relief flow through her. She went to the window and crowded in beside Josh. With pride and an immense flooding of happiness, she watched Shane as he dismounted out by the stable, while his friend, Red Raven, stayed on his horse. Her gaze went to the five handsome horses that were now being guided into the pasture and let loose.

  "He did it," she whispered, placing a hand to her throat. She looked at the pelts thrown across the back of Shane's horse. "Not only did he succeed at getting the horses from Chief Gray Falcon, but the pelts too!"

  "What on earth are you talking about?" Josh asked, squinting through the falling dusk.

  Melanie did not take the time to respond. She was too eager to go and embrace Shaneto welcome him back home. His return had proved so much to her!

  Breaking into a run, she left the bedroom. She did not even feel the steps beneath her feet as she rushed down the staircase. Breathless, she hurried

  from the house, down the front steps. Lifting her skirt up into her arms, she ran toward Shane.

  When he saw her approaching, he met her halfway and drew her into his embrace, hugging her fiercely.

  "As promised, I have returned," he said in a whisper into her ear. "It is good to feel you in my arms, Melanie. So good."

  "What's this all about?"

  Melanie and Shane drew apart quickly when Josh spoke up behind them. Shane took a step toward his brother and glowered at him.

  "I said what's this all about?" Josh stormed, gesturing toward the horses that Shane had added to the others. "Where did you get those horses? Why did you bring them here? Damn it, Shane, where the hell have you been?"

  "I owe you no answers about anything," Shane said. He walked past Josh and lifted a hand to Red Raven. They intertwined their fingers. "My friend, we will meet again. But until we do, ride with care."

  Red Raven gave Shane a steady gaze, gripped his hand harder, then drew it away. He wheeled his horse around and rode off in a gallop.

  Josh went to the fence and peered at the horses more closely. "These horses are stolen, aren't they?" he asked, giving Shane a glance over his shoulder. "Melanie said something about Chief Gray Falcon. Shane, did you steal these horses from him?"

  Shane tightened his jaw. He turned away from Josh and began lifting his pelts off his horse. He

  stiffened when Josh came to him and grabbed him by an arm.

  "Shane, are these horses stolen?" Josh shouted. He stared down at the pelts. "Are those stolen pelts? Are you trying to draw us into a war with the Indians? I should have expected something like this!"

  Melanie yanked his hand from Shane's arm. "Josh, stop that!" she shouted. "You don't understand. You don't know!"

  Josh st
epped away from Melanie. He raked his fingers nervously through his hair, staring from Melanie to Shane. "I've had enough," he said, his voice drawn. "I've got to get away. I can't be a part of horse stealing. I won't be here when the Indians arrive to retaliate!"

  He waved a hand wildly in the air. "For now, it's all yours," he said, his voice breaking. "I see now that there's no other wayno other way to prove that it's wrong for you to be here except to let you take charge. It won't take long for you and everyone else to see just how wrong it is. I'll be back and take over after you leave. That is, if the damn Indians don't burn down my house and steal all of my cattle first!"

  Melanie's mouth dropped open. She stared disbelievingly at Josh as he broke into a run toward the stable and soon rode away on his horse.

  Shane seemed not at all disturbed by Josh's abrupt decision to leave. He walked toward the house with the pelts.

  Melanie watched, feeling suddenly helpless. Without Josh, everythingall responsibility for

  Shane's welfarehad fallen into her hands. It would be up to her to teach Shane everything, or he would lose the farm! She knew that Josh would not stay away forever. He cared too much about his position in life to turn his back on it. Melanie had only till Josh's return to teach Shane everything that was required to run a cattle farm!

  She looked up at the butte, where the land reached into the forest. Fear suddenly claimed her heart. Josh had been right to worry about a reprisal by Chief Gray Falcon.

  But just what sort could be expected?

  Melanie broke into a run after Shane. She had much to say to him. She had much to find out. There was the question about Cedar Maid. In what way had he loved her? And how deeply?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Melanie followed Shane through the house and into his bedroom. Wide-eyed, she watched him lay his pelts aside, then remove the packages from his bed and place them on the floor. Without hesitation, he lifted the mattress from his bed and carried it past Melanie, out into the hall, then returned and dismantled the bed and, piece by piece, removed it from the room also.

  Puzzled by his actions, Melanie watched Shane as he placed the many pelts on the floor where his bed had stood, spreading them out in a comfortable pile.

  Shane stood up and studied his pallet of furs, nodding his approval, then went to Melanie and took her hand and led her to them. Snuggling her close in his arms, he eased her down onto the furs.

  "I am being forced to conform to many things now that I live away from the Chippewa," he said, brushing his mouth lightly against her lips. "But if I am ever to have a full night of sleep again, I had to do away with that damn bed."

  Now understanding, Melanie laughed softly. She twined her fingers through his blond hair, curving her body into his as he lay beside her. She looked up at his sun-bronzed, finely chiseled face as he gazed down at her. "Darling, however you choose to sleep is fine with me," she whispered. "I don't need a bed. All I need is you."

  Shane turned to lie on his back and lifted her atop him. His loins grew hot as he felt the weight of her breasts pressing against his chest. "Melanie, how can I tell you how much it means to me to have you?" he asked, searching her face with his eyes, seeing her flawless features, how delicately sweet and sculpted her lips were. Her eyes, brown and soft, looked adoringly down at him, firing his desire.

  "That you have returned assures me that I can believe what you say," Melanie murmured, gently placing a hand to his cheek, ignoring the two-day growth of blond stubble. "Yet, there are questions, Shane. I know that I should not ask them, but I must."

  Shane brushed a kiss across her lips, then rolled her back down beside him. He leaned on an elbow and faced her, his eyes haunted with remembrance. "You need not ask," he said gently. "Let me tell you, for you see, I know your thoughts without your speaking them aloud to me."

  Melanie's eyes clouded with tears. She waited anxiously for his explanation, yet as the moments passed, nothing but that he was there with her seemed all that important to her anymore. He could have been slain on his expedition to the Indian village to steal the horses and pelts!

  But he hadn't been.

  He could have decided not to return to his farm, knowing the obstacles that stood in his way.

  But he had!

  Not only had he returned, but he was now with her, proving to her that he was devoted to herthat he truly loved her. If he had loved Cedar Maid in that way, he would have never left her! He would have taken her with him when he was forced to leave the village. He would have made Cedar Maid his wife!

  But he hadn't.

  "You want to know about Cedar Maid, fearing that she was more to me than I have professed," Shane said. "Cedar Maid and I shared many secrets. Many times we bathed together in the river. We strolled through the forest, hand in hand. I knew everything about her. She, everything about me. But never did we touch in any way but as brother and sister."

  "You loved her so very much," Melanie said, hearing the melancholy in his voice.

  "Melanie, she was a sister to me," Shane said, smoothing a fallen lock of her hair back from her eyes. "We were raised in the same wigwam. Did I love her? No true sister could have been any dearer to me. But the love in her life belonged to

  Red Raven. He was going to ask her to marry him. Soon. But the trapper offered the bride price before Red Raven had the chance. The trapper had more to offer, so if Red Raven had even asked Cedar Maid to marry him, she would have been denied him.''

  He moved over Melanie, resting on his knees above her. "So you see?" he said softly. "She occupied a large portion of my heart for many years, but never in the way that you do, now. You have given me a different sort of lovethe sort a man would die for!"

  He wrapped her within his arms and drew her against him as he stretched out atop her. His mouth came to her in a heated kiss. Melanie answered his kiss with abandon, a curling of heat tightening within her. She moaned against his lips as he kneaded her breasts through her dress, making her need for him grow with fevered intensity.

  "Please let me undress you," she whispered, drawing her lips away.

  Her hands went to his fringed buckskin shirt and slid it slowly up his broad, tanned chest and over his head. With a boldness she had never known in herself before, Melanie untied the leather laces of his fringed breeches and pushed this garment down, revealing his risen manhood to her, and she knew that his desire for her was great. With exquisite tenderness, she encircled his hardness with her hand and moved her fingers on him, watching his eyes become filled with a hazy, unleashed passion.

  Her gaze swept over him, seeing his long, lithe body, slim-hipped and well-muscled.

  And he was so very, very aroused!

  Hardly able to stand the way she was maddeningly arousing him, Shane moved her hand away. He placed a hand to Melanie's waist and lifted her to her feet as he moved to his.

  Slowly, meditatingly, Shane began undressing her. Once she was silkenly nude, he lowered his mouth to a breast and flicked his tongue over the nipple, causing it to harden into a tight, dark peak.

  With slow deliberation, Shane's hands traveled over Melanie's slim, sinuous body. Her long, drifting hair cascaded across her shoulders as she held her head back, sighing langorously, when his lips replaced his hands, moving hotly down her body, drugging her.

  "I must have you," Shane whispered, engulfing her within his arms, easing her back down onto the pallet of furs. "Now."

  "Yes, my love," Melanie whispered, smoothing his hair back from his face as he rose above her. She drifted toward him, arching her hips to meet him. She placed her cheek on his chest. "You smell of spring rain." She licked his neck, then around his hardened nipples. "So sweet. Oh, Shane, you are so wonderfully sweet."

  Shane's jaw tightened with pleasure. "It is good that I thought to bathe today in the river while the horses were watering," he whispered. "I shall remember to do that more often if it arouses you in this way." He gritted his teeth as her tongue

  swept into his ear, then
again down, around a tightened nipple.

  "My darling, don't you know that it is not because of your bath?" Melanie giggled, looking adoringly up at him. "It is you, Shane. Just being with you causes me to behave so wantonly!"

  "Wanton?" he said huskily, his eyes lit with points of fire as he gazed down at her. "Never wanton. Just your sweet self learning more and more how to please your man."

  Their bodies strained together as he entered her in one bold thrust. Shane's mouth came to hers with an explosive kiss, as his movements within her became more demanding. She responded in kind, her hips moving in unison with his thrusts. Their bodies jolted and quivered. Their mouths opened and their tongues met and danced.

  The pleasure mounted within Melanie. It filled her with a crazy sort of spinning sensation that suddenly spilled over, filling her with ecstasy.

  Shane moved his mouth from her lips. He burrowed his nose into the depths of her hair and emitted a loud groan of pleasure as his body tightened and stiffened, and then plunged further within her, releasing his love seed within her womb.

  Their bodies pearled and sleek with sweat, Melanie and Shane drew apart. They each stretched out on their backs, their eyes closed. Then Melanie's heart soared with pleasure when Shane gently cupped the throbbing mound at the juncture of her thighs, slowly thrusting a finger in and out of her, arousing her anew.

  Their eyes met, locking, promising ecstasy. "What are you doing?" she murmured, smiling drunkenly. Her pulse began to race as the same, dizzying pleasure began to spread through her that only Shane had the ability to arouse. She closed her eyes, trembling, and shook her head back and forth.

  "Oh, Shane, Shane," she whispered, breathing raggedly. "What you do to me! Oh, what you do to me!"

  In a matter of moments that same wondrous release soared through her, blissful in its sweetness. She cried out, then was glad when Shane was suddenly there, holding her and rocking her in his muscled arms.