She glanced up in time to see a hint of contriteness replace the teasing look on Jon's face.
"Aw, Caitlyn," he said.
But Little Sun, who had no idea what a cookie was — or a secret — reached for the figure in Jon's hand, and Jon had to quickly pull his knife out of the way.
"Dog," Little Sun said, clasping his fingers open and shut. "Dog. Dog."
"All right," Jon said. "Just let me finish his ears first."
He carved two small points on the figure's head, then handed it over. Little Sun chortled with laughter and slid from Jon's knee. He ran across the room and climbed onto a chair by the table, holding the figure out for Caitlyn to admire.
"Dog," he said again. "Jon, dog."
"Why, it looks just like him," Caitlyn said. "It's very nice."
"'Ice," Little Sun said with a nod. "Jon, 'ice."
Jon rose from the bunk and brushed the wood shavings onto the floor. Walking over to where Caitlyn kept the broom beside the fireplace, he carried it and the dustpan back to the bunk. Though Caitalyn watched him closely, she didn't see him glance at the cookies.
But Little Sun had finally noticed them. He reached out a hand that Caitlyn quickly caught before it could touch the still hot tray.
"Hot," she told him sternly. "Here, you sit down and I'll give you one."
Little Sun obediently sat in the chair and Caitlyn pushed the tray to the far side of the table. She carefully removed one of the cookies and broke it into several pieces to cool, laying the pieces on her linen hand towel. A smile quirked her lips between blows of breath on the cookie to hurry the cooling. Jon kept his back to her while he swept the shavings into a neat pile.
"Ummmm, good," Caitlyn said as she laid the broken pieces in front of Little Sun. "Careful, now. It's still a little warm."
Little Sun picked up a piece and stared at it for a second, then popped it into his mouth. His small face split into a grin as he chewed, and Caitlyn laughed in response.
Jon passed the table again, the dustpan full of wood shavings. He threw them into the fireplace, then returned the broom and pan to their hooks on the wall. When he turned around, Caitlyn stood there.
She offered him the cookie. "Jon, 'ice," she said in a soft voice. "Jon cleaned up after himself. Jon ver' 'ice."
Smiling down at her, Jon covered her hand with his. He bent his head and bit off a chunk of cookie, his lips barely brushing her fingertips.
A shiver of pleasure ran up Caitlyn's arm and she almost dropped the cookie. Jon closed his hand more firmly around hers and bent his head again. He cupped her hand in his while he bit off piece after piece and chewed slowly, then bent a last time for the crumbs.
His soft tongue licked her palm slowly, caressingly. He probed it between each finger and cascades of delectable sensations crawled up her arm, spreading to other parts of her body. Caitlyn's legs trembled as she fought for control.
When her hand was at last clean, Jon raised his head. "Ver' 'ice," he said with a nod. "The cookie, too."
He kissed her parted lips gently, and Caitlyn blushed as she pushed him away.
"Jon...Little Sun," she said with a gasp.
"He better get used to it," Jon told her in a firm voice. "Silas, too. I'm tired of hiding my feelings for you. From now on, I'm going to touch you when I want to — kiss you when I want to. Tell you I love you whenever I feel like it, no matter who's listening."
Caitlyn tried to whirl away from him, but Jon caught her shoulders. "Scared?" he questioned when she glanced shyly up at him.
At her nod, he continued, "Yeah, me, too. I thought I cared for someone else once, but it was nothing like this."
"And just who was that?" Caitlyn spat around the pangs of jealousy clouding her mind.
"Nobody important," Jon assured her. "Nobody the least bit important. But this is important — this feeling I have for you. And I'm not going to give it up without one hell of a fight."
"Hell," Little Sun said from the table.
Jon's face flushed and Caitlyn dissolved into laughter. "You're just going to have to learn to watch your language," she said when she could speak. "He's picking up words right and left now."
"Yeah. Well, I'll try." Caitlyn pulled against his hold again, but Jon bent his head once more.
"Hey," he said quietly. "Wanna know a secret?"
She shrugged, and he nudged the hair away from her ear. "He was right," he whispered, then quickly walked over to the table to sit with Little Sun.
Caitlyn stared wide-eyed after him, her ear still tingling with the feel of his breath feathering across it and her mind whirling as she tried to make sense of his words. Suddenly she remembered what Jon had said just before he bent to whisper his secret to Little Sun.
He'd repeated the Sioux's words that she and Jon ought to be married, if they weren't then. She could hear Reach for the Moon's voice again in the Sioux language, which she had translated for Jon.
She glanced at the figure of Dog that Little Sun had discarded on the table in favor of the cookies. Reach for the Moon had given her Dog at first for a wedding present. When informed that they weren't married, the Sioux told her to keep the dog to remind herself that love had many faces.
But that wasn't what Jon had been referring to. She backed up her thoughts a little. "Yite," Little Sun had said. Jon had told him that Reach for the Moon had been right in saying that she and Jon should be married.
Her frown of concentration deepened. Jon knew as well as she did that they couldn't get married. Didn't he? He wanted to go back east to his family — she wanted to live her life in the mountains.
Well, she wouldn't really mind seeing a few of the places she'd read about in Jon's books, but none of them could possibly be as beautiful as her mountains.
And look at how attached Jon had grown to Little Sun. He'd definitely want sons of his own some day, and she had no intentions of ever having a baby.
Of course, it might not tie her down as much as she'd thought at first, if Jon helped with the children like he did with Little Sun.
Silas opened the door a crack and called, "Hey, Jon, I got us some meat, but I'm gonna need a little help."
Jon quickly rose and walked to the door, speaking to Silas through the slight crack so the frigid air outside would be kept at bay. "What's up, Silas?" he asked.
Caitlyn followed Jon to the door and clearly heard Silas's voice reply, "Shot me a moose, but the danged noise from my rifle started a slide. The moose ain't buried deep, seeing as how it's sort of early in the season for us to have any of them large avalanches we get later on. And it ain't very far away. But it'll take both of us to get it out of there."
"I'll be right out, Silas."
Jon closed the door and reached for his buffalo robe as Caitlyn hurried back to the table.
"I'll wrap up a few of the cookies for you to take," she said, picking up the linen towel and reaching for the tray. "Silas is probably hungry."
A few minutes later, the men were both gone, and Caitlyn busied herself straightening the cabin. Though she lingered over washing the few dirty dishes, and even heated water to scrub the pine-plank floor, at least another hour faced her before Jon and Silas could possibly return. Since the idea of fresh meat settled her plans for supper, she had no preparations to make for the evening meal.
Little Sun, enraptured with the figure of Dog, quietly amused himself on the newly-scrubbed floor, jabbering nonsense as he and Dog played out adventures in his mind. Caitlyn didn't even have the job of washing his nappies since Jon had taught the little boy to use either the outhouse or chamberpot Caitlyn kept in her room.
There had to be something else to do. Caitlyn paced restlessly around the room, pausing to straighten a pan on one of the hooks by the fireplace. Though she grumbled at them from time to time, Silas and Jon usually kept their corners of the room fairly neat. She noticed that Jon had even snugged his fur covers he and Little Sun had wrinkled over his bunk before he swept up the wood shavings.
&
nbsp; As usual, he'd left his rifle propped in the corner for her, beside the pack filled with extra supplies he took when he ran the lines. On the shelf above his bunk, his belongings lay in orderly stacks — two more sets of long underwear, wool socks rolled together lying on top of the new moccasins she had made him, an extra set of buckskins.
Maybe she should work on those two shirts for Jon and Silas's Christmas presents. She still had to attach the sleeves and decorate Jon's with beading and dyed porcupine quills to match the possibles bag she got him at rendezvous.
She'd much rather sit and read, though. She studied the stack of Jon's books on the shelf. With a long winter ahead of them yet, they'd all agreed to carefully ration the books — just a chapter each evening. Tonight they would start a new book, since she had finished one while they were snowbound the last few days.
Noticing the quiet in the cabin, Caitlyn glanced around to see Little Sun stretched out on the floor, the figure of Dog clasped tightly in his small hand. With a smile of love on her face, she carefully lifted him into her arms. Holding him close for a moment, she stroked the raven hair back from his face, then kissed his cheek and laid him in his bed.
"Little boy," she whispered. "I'm going to have to watch out or I'll be as attached to you as Jon is. I have to keep reminding myself that you belong to Spirit Eagle."
With a sigh, she turned away. "All right, Caitlyn," she continued whispering. "You already are attached to him. And he's not near the trouble you tried to tell yourself babies would be. Shoot, Jon and Silas are a lot more trouble. They eat more — take bigger clothes. Take up more space."
What the heck was wrong with her? Normally she enjoyed her time alone at the cabin — well, most of the time, as long as she had something to do to keep her hands busy. Now that big hole in the corner of the room, which Jon filled when he came in, mocked her. Darn it, she missed him, and he'd only been gone a couple hours.
What in the world will you do when he leaves for good?
Caitlyn shook her head to chase away that aching thought. Determinedly she walked over to the shelf and took down the book she'd decided to start reading tonight. She could read the first chapter now, and repeat it tonight for Jon and Silas.
Settling herself near the window at the foot of Jon's bunk for light, she propped the book on her upraised knees and opened the cover. An envelope slid onto her lap, followed by a thin piece of foolscap paper. She picked them up and started to lay them aside, and another, stiffer piece of paper fell from the folded foolscap.
Curious, Caitlyn picked it up. A tiny image of Jon as a baby stared back at her. Granted, the image was faint, the paper brown and curled, but she couldn't mistake its identity. Those same eyes, that determined chin with a slight cleft. Light-colored hair curling around the baby's ears, with the same little cowlick on his forehead.
Caitlyn ran a fingertip across the picture. She'd never seen anything like this. Pictures had to be painted if a person wanted a reminder. No bumps of paint marred this likeness, and it had to have been done twenty-five years ago or more.
Caitlyn picked up the foolscap paper to stuff it back into the envelope. She had no business prying into Jon's personal letters.
He came a little early, and Roxie would hardly even let me hold him until he grew some. Remember cousin Thomas? He just got back from France and he's excited about this new form of photography some painter named Daguerre is working on. You know Thomas — he's always trying out new inventions, and he's experimenting over here with what Daguerre showed him. It's not perfected yet, but we let him take little Charles's picture to send to you.
Caitlyn dropped the paper as though scalded, then grabbed it back up to look at the date on the other side. Last spring! Someone had written to Jon enclosing a picture of a baby about three months old last spring, and sent the letter to him at rendezvous. Rendezvous could have been the only place for the letter to catch up to him.
And just who the hell was Roxie?
Without even a stab of guilt, Caitlyn picked up the foolscap again to read the entire letter. By the time she finished it, she was even more confused. Charles had to be the half-brother Jon had told her about, and this Roxie was Charles's wife. Charles begged Jon to come back to the plantation, offering him, obviously not for the first time, a share in the plantation.
You always were the brains behind our profits, Jon, and it's just not running the same without you. Roxie wanted to turn your room into little Charles's nursery, but that's one thing I stood up to her about. And you yourself know how hard it is to deny Roxie anything.
And just how the hell would Jon know that?
Jon's voice echoed in her head. I thought I cared for someone else once, but it was nothing like this.
Caitlyn grabbed the picture again. He came a little early.... The pieces fell into place. Jon's baby. He'd left behind the woman he claimed to once care for — pregnant with his baby. His brother had married her instead. And his brother wanted Jon to come home.
Wouldn't that make a nice little threesome? No, foursome, with the baby.
Caitlyn snorted her disgust at Jon as she stuffed the letter and picture back into the envelope. Slamming the book cover back into place over the letter, she jumped from the bunk and thudded the book back on the shelf.
Words! She wished she'd never learned to read them. The pain tore at her as she paced around the room.
Sweet words, like Jon whispered to her. False words, the words in the letter confirming the lies.
Had he whispered promises of marriage to Roxie, too? Had the sincerity in his eyes appeared as genuine when he said I love you? What sort of a man could his brother be, to have taken Jon's leavings and even be raising Jon's son as his own?
How could she have even contemplated changing her mind about the life she wanted for herself — a life of peace and solitude in the mountains she loved. With no ties to anyone who could die and leave her again.
She'd only gone to Sky Woman after Mick's death because she realized there was no way she could prepare for the long winter to come without Mick's help. They hadn't even cut wood yet, a task that usually occupied Mick on through the winter months.
Jon and Silas had seemed a godsend when they agreed to winter with her. She'd needed their help to get through this first winter, but with the proper planning she could make it on her own from now on. She'd just have to start her winter preparations as soon as spring broke each year.
She could do it — she knew she could. She could run her own lines, trade her own furs for supplies at rendezvous, visit with Sky Woman and some of Mick's old mountain men friends each summer. The long winters alone wouldn't bother her that much.
If only Jon hadn't opened her eyes to the world outside her mountain paradise with those darned books he brought along.
She stared around the cabin, imagining it next winter without any companions to break the solitude. Now it appeared snug and home-like, with the extra bunks and clothing on the shelves.
No, it's cramped, she told herself. Next winter she would have plenty of room to move around, without stumbling over other people.
Besides, it had to be better than living in a world with a man who nonchalantly walked away from his unborn baby and just as quickly started wheedling his way between the legs of the next woman he ran across. Lies, lies, lies. Silas lied, too. Jon would never make a mountain man, because mountain men stood by their word.
He's never come right out and asked you to marry him, Caitlyn's logical mind told her. And you've been telling him all along that you absolutely had no plans to get tied down with a marriage and family.
"And I'm sure as heck not going to!" Caitlyn answered her mind aloud. "I'm going to make sure that Silas and Jon both know that I'm coming back up here by myself after the next rendezvous. They can find their own danged territory to run lines in!"
Jon shouldered the door open and dropped a hide-wrapped haunch of meat on the floor. "Silas is putting the rest of the meat up on our storage platform," he
said to Caitlyn as he shrugged off his robe. "I thought you might like to slice us some steaks off this for supper...."
He turned into Caitlyn's blazing glare, his face creasing into a frown. "What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing important," Caitlyn spat at him. "Nothing important at all!"
Jon crossed the room in two strides and reached out for her. "Well, then, how about a welcome home kiss?"
Caitlyn roughly shoved his arms away. "This isn't your home! It's mine, and I'll thank you to remember that from now on. If you want a kiss, go kiss that moose's cold nose, because you'll get about as much response out of that as you will me from now on!"
Caitlyn whirled and ran into her room, wrenching the blanket across the door back into place before she threw herself onto her bed. She buried her face on her pillow, then quickly sat back up. The pillow still smelled of Jon.
Well, he damned well better not follow her in here! She glared at the doorway, but the blanket remained undisturbed. A long moment later, she heard the door open again and Dog's toe nails clicking across the pine floor. The door slammed shut and Silas spoke.
"What you doin' standin' there like you got a stick up your butt, Jon? And where's Cat?"
"Resting, I guess," Jon muttered in reply.
"She's probably been busy," Silas said. "Look how nice and cheery everything is. Makes a man feel good, comin' home to a nice place like this."
"Home, hell," Jon snarled. "I'm gonna take my horse out for some exercise."
"Jon, it's almost dark...."
Caitlyn heard the door slam once again on Silas's words.
****
Chapter 23
The days slowly crawled toward Christmas, and Caitlyn resented each passing week. The holiday should be celebrated with loved ones, and she struggled between the earlier, happy memories of Christmases with Mick and her sureness that this year the coming day would be flat and meaningless.
Mountain Magic Page 23
