Quietly, Caitlyn slipped into the main room of the cabin. She loved this time of morning, when she could look at her small family, still abed, to her heart's content.
Little Sun lay on his back, one arm upflung over his head. She padded over, her moccasins silent on the pine floor, and snugged his blanket up around his shoulders.
Silas always grumbled and snorted for several minutes before he came fully awake, and just then she heard the first, preparatory snort as he rolled from his stomach to his back.
Jon. Jon came awake in an instant. She could sense the change in him even the mornings she worked across the room, busy at the fireplace, with her back to him.
Cheek pillowed on his palm, he lay still asleep right now. Lordy, she didn't know how it was possible, but each morning when she looked at him, she loved him more. His blond hair fell across his forehead, begging for her fingers to brush it back in place, and his slightly parted lips invited her own for a kiss.
With the longer days of the approaching mountain spring, more light filtered into the cabin on these early mornings. She could see Jon's gold-tipped lashes against his cheeks. Suddenly he opened his eyes, focusing unerringly on her and sending a thrill of tenderness coursing through her.
"Morning, darlin'," he whispered just loud enough to reach her ears.
"Morning," Caitlyn breathed.
Jon sat up, reaching for his britches at the end of the bunk. He wore his two-piece longjohns — the ones she had washed for him yesterday on wash day — but she knew the feel of his skin beneath the material way too well for the wool to conceal the pleasure the layers of muscles and sinews gave her. She crossed the room as he stood and pulled on his britches, lifting her face for their private, morning kiss as she drew near.
Jon granted her silent request, drawing her close and threading his fingers through her still unbound hair.
"I love you, sweetheart," he said when he lifted his head.
Caitlyn wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled against his chest. "Yes, I think I remember you saying that a time or two yesterday."
"And I believe you admitted it a time or two yourself," he growled in a low voice. "In between the times you begged me to make you my own."
She buried her nose deeper on his chest to hide her blushing cheeks. Jon's smothered laughter rumbled, the rhythm of it rippling against her forehead, and she bunched the hem of his longjohn shirt upward, then scraped a fingernail lightly against that ticklish spot she had found on his waist.
"Hey," Jon whispered with a chuckle as he caught her hand. "Quit that, or I'll start laughing loud enough to wake up Silas and the boy. And I wanted us to slip out and watch the sunrise together this morning."
Caitlyn stepped back and nodded her agreement, a smile of contentment on her face. "Let's do. I'll just get the fire started while you finish dressing."
"Do it quietly," Jon ordered with a mock frown. "I'm not in the mood for company with us this morning."
Caitlyn mimicked a curtsey of compliance before she walked back to the fireplace. As fresh flames curled around her kindling a few minutes later, she glanced at the doorway in answer to Jon's hiss for her attention.
"I'll meet you outside," he mouthed as he pointed at the door.
Caitlyn nodded, and he opened the door, closing it softly behind him. She propped a few larger pieces of wood over the kindling, then rose and padded over to where her jacket hung beside the door. As noiselessly as Jon, she made her escape into the pre-dawn wilderness.
As always, the lovely black and white world almost took her breath away. A few stars still glinted overhead, their normal glitter muted to a hazy glow. Shoulder-high banks of snow surrounded her, but she walked up the gradual rise in the path ahead of her until she stood above the drifts. Alternate freezes and thaws had settled the snow into a firm foundation to walk across, except for a few inches of new flakes that had fallen during the night.
Towering trees loomed way higher than the snow drifts — pines sooty black instead of green without the sun to highlight their color where the snow had dropped from their branches. Birch, their black-veined trunks gray-white in contrast to the milky snow, grew in profusion. Stark, denuded oak and maple branches stretched leaflessly upward, forming helter-skelter jumbles against the sky.
Soaring mountains overrode it all, their tips almost kissing the fading stars. The icy clarity of the frigid air made everything appear close enough to touch, yet much too beautiful to make the attempt.
Caitlyn saw Jon, waiting on the edge of the clearing. He opened his arms, and she raced across the new fallen snow, scattering flakes that misted her feet in much the same way her puffs of breath floated around her face.
Instead of hugging her close, Jon grabbed her at the waist and lifted her into the air. He whirled her around twice, kissing her into further dizziness after he lowered her body back toward earth.
Caitlyn broke the kiss first, with a gasp. "I thought we came out here to watch the sunrise!"
"That was just an excuse to get you alone so I could get my hands on you without four other eyes watching," Jon admitted around a satisfied grin. "But if you want, you can watch the sunrise and I'll watch you watching it. I don't want to overload myself with beauty this early in the morning. There's a plateful of it right here in my arms."
"My, my, how you do go on, suh, " Caitlyn said in an attempt to imitate the Southern drawl she had heard in a couple different mountain men's voices, as well as Jon's. "I s'pose ya'll think you can turn a girl's head with those pretty words and have your way with her."
"I can." Jon nuzzled her nose. "I don't have to think about it. I know I can."
Caitlyn swatted his shoulder, then turned in his arms to face the east, already tinged a faint pink. She heard Jon muffle a grunt of annoyance, but she reached back and pulled his arms around her.
"I can't see you as well this way," Jon grumbled.
Caitlyn patted his hands as though comforting Little Sun. "Watch the sunrise," she commanded.
Jon propped his chin on her head and obeyed for a while. The pink brightened to crimson, lightening the charcoal sky overhead until it shaded toward blue. The mountain tops sawtoothed through the blazing colors that foreshadowed the new day — colors that imperceptibly changed the clouds from blood-red to magenta, lightened them to lilac, then, as the blue of the sky deepened, allowed their true, storm dark color to appear.
"Looks like more snow today," Jon murmured.
"Um hum. But it won't last too many more weeks — at least the hard storms won't. Spring will start breaking through in another month or so."
"Yep. And then we can head back toward civilization and find a minister to marry us. We might have to wait until we get back to St. Louis, unless we cross paths with the rendezvous pack trains on our way. There was a minister with them last summer — not that very many of the men paid much attention to him."
"Mountain men are religious, Jon," Caitlyn said, tilting her head to look over her shoulder at him. "It's just that they've come out here to avoid those same restrictions ministers spout at times. They don't feel it's anybody's business but their own if they have a few drinks now and then — or even get drunk if they want to. They live by their own creed, that says a man's loyalty to his friends is even more important than his own life. And they think living their lives being true to themselves and their friends is more important than paying some preacher to keep their souls out of a hell that may or may not be."
"Sounds like some Mick O'Shaunessy philosophy to me," Jon said, tapping her cute nose with a fingertip. "Did Mick run away from something back in Ireland, too?"
"Paw came out here from New York City," Caitlyn told him. "He was born in this country, not Ireland. But he said he couldn't stand the poverty the Irish were forced to live in back there — the low-life jobs his father had to take to support his mother and the other six children in their family. The children couldn't even go to school — they had to pick up rags almost as soon as they could walk
. Then go to work in those factories when they were old enough, just so their family could have two meager meals a day!"
"I know, darlin'," Jon said. "Some of the slaveholders in Virginia don't treat their blacks much better than that."
"Huh. Paw said it was worse than that. The slaves at least got fed every day, so they could go out and work again. Every mouthful of food Paw and his family put in their stomachs, they earned the money for themselves. And if they couldn't work, they didn't eat. Winters were especially rough, when the shipping and docks were slow."
"I...," Jon began.
"Where was all that religious love for their fellow man while babies died of hunger and children turned old before they were in their teens, Jon? Paw ran away when he was barely eleven and worked his way steadily west. He never went back. Never saw anyone in his family again."
"Like your mother never went back to Ireland?"
"You read the journal. You know she didn't."
"Caitlyn, there's something else in that journal about why she left...."
"Phooey. That's...what's that word I learned in one of your books? Archaic, that's it. Jon, I'm not about to worry over the fact that some man who calls himself my grandfather — who I can't even remember — is upset because my mother married a man he thought was beneath her. Mama didn't accept him trying to dictate how she should live her life. Insisting she marry a man she didn't love after she was widowed. She married my step-father, James, instead, and came to America with him."
Jon studied her resolute face for a moment. This could quickly escalate into an argument, and that had definitely not been what he had in mind when they escaped the cabin to have a few minutes alone in the breaking morning. But his nagging suspicions just wouldn't quit.
"Caitlyn, there's a cast system in Ireland that's pretty rigid. Who a man's daughter marries reflects on hundreds of years of family history."
"Mama evidently didn't agree with that. It's as archaic," Caitlyn repeated, liking the way the new word rolled from her tongue, "to think you can force a woman into marriage these days as it is for you and your friends to think bloodlines are more important than love in a marriage. Morning Star left her family behind to be with Spirit Eagle because she loved him so much. She knew she would be banned and that she was breaking their customs. Besides, Mama defying my grandfather happened over fifteen years ago, Jon. It doesn't have anything to do with me now."
Fifteen years against hundreds of years of family history. But Caitlyn probably couldn't even imagine that, since she had been raised among the mountain men. Those men, though loyal to one another, as Caitlyn said, still valued their freedom and independence above all else. They met once a year — visited and caroused — then slipped back into their mostly solitary lives for the rest of the year.
She'd even admitted to him once that she hadn't allowed herself to be close to any Indian family with small children, because her nightmares always returned.
He'd tried to discuss this with Caitlyn before, though, and he knew he had to handle her gently, as he had promised he would. He chuckled under his breath and dropped a kiss on her lips. "Reading your mother's journal was almost like reading about you, sweetheart. You're a lot like her."
"I hope so. I admire her almost as much as I love her. And from what I can remember, she loved Reggie and me an awful lot. She even gave up her life for me."
Dog loped toward them, barking a greeting and jumping at Caitlyn. She dropped her hands from Jon's shoulders and grabbed Dog's furry ruff.
"Good morning," she said as she dug her fingers into his fur. "I guess this means Silas is up, and probably Little Sun, too. You didn't get out of the cabin by yourself."
Dog slurped her cheek in answer, then dropped back to his feet and trotted off into the trees. A second later, a snowshoe rabbit bounded out into the clearing, with Dog howling gleefully at its heels. The two animals raced around the clearing before disappearing once again into the woods.
"Dog's just playing with it," Jon said in response to Caitlyn's worried look. "He won't kill it. He's too well fed to have to catch his food."
"I hope you're right. That's the rabbit that hops out here and lets Little Sun watch it mornings when we come outside to get some air. He's got that one black ear."
Dog ran out of the woods again. He hit a soft spot in the snow and floundered wildly until he crawled out of the hole. Shaking the snow from his coat, he stared at Jon and Caitlyn, a look on his furry face that could only be reproach for their laughter. They laughed harder, and Dog sat on his haunches, turning his face away.
"I swear," Jon said with a guffaw, "that animal acts human sometimes."
"What do you expect?" Caitlyn said around her giggles. "He doesn't have another dog around to show him any different."
"Look."
Jon pointed at the woods as the rabbit hopped a few steps into the clearing. It stopped, nose wiggling and its black ear standing at attention, the white one lying against its back. Dog caught sight of it, and the chase began again.
"They're just working off their high spirits," Jon said, wrapping an arm around Caitlyn's waist to walk her down the path. "Hope Dog doesn't get too tired to pull the sled for us today."
"Did Silas tell you how Dog laid down and refused to help us keep looking for a Christmas tree that day?"
"If I heard the story right," Jon teased, "Dog refused to help you keep looking for that tree."
"I wanted it to be the right one — for a special day."
At the cabin door, Jon pulled her into his arms. "It was a special day. It will always be one of the most special days in my life."
He kissed her lingeringly, tasting her mouth in that extraordinary way only Jon had. Caitlyn gave him back caress for caress, whimper for growl of flaring passion. With similar, reluctant sighs, they drew apart.
"I guess we should go in, darlin'."
"I guess so."
"Caitlyn...."
"Hum?"
"About that stuff in the journal...."
"Oh, for pity sakes, Jon. Look, all this bloodline business just isn't important to me. I've lived all this time without worrying about who my family was, what kind of people they were. Paw was my father, and I was perfectly happy to be with him."
"Caitlyn...."
She softened her voice. "Jon, I know you were raised differently — you had family around you all the time. You had rules to go by — expectations they had of you. When I meet your family, I'll do my darndest to make you proud of me."
"I already am proud of you, sweetheart. So damned proud I could bust. But you've got to realize that sometimes there's family obligations a person can't just walk away from. Things that are part of your life."
Caitlyn patted his cheek. "We already talked about that, Jon. I won't stand in your way of making sure your son's taken care of. Now." She reached to open the door. "I better get in there and see about breakfast for everyone."
Halfway through the door, she turned back to him. "Are you coming?"
"I'll be there in a minute."
Caitlyn blew him a surreptitious kiss, then closed the door, and Jon frowned at the wood barrier. After a second, he stuck his hands into the pockets of his robe, and turned to walk back up the path.
Darn, he loved her, but sometimes the very same guilelessness and openness that had drawn him to Caitlyn in the beginning rankled him. She expected the world around her to abide by the same philosophy she practiced herself. Live and let live. Accept what you have, what you can do for yourself and your friends, and don't worry about what the rest of the world thinks.
It didn't work that way, as Jon well knew. The plantation and Clay fortune were a hell of a lot more important to Roxie than love in her marriage. Poor Charlie had a hefty measure of the same naivete as Caitlyn, and now he was probably paying the price. Jon would bet his entire small bank account to the last dime that part of the plantation's money problems came from the lavish lifestyle Roxie preferred.
Jon could have handled th
at in Roxie, but his much milder mannered brother wouldn't have a clue as to how to deny Roxie anything she set her mind to having. Charlie had a huge measure of the Clay family pride, too, and he wouldn't want his wife whining to her friends that her husband couldn't support her.
Family pride. That's what bothered Jon about the journal. Though society didn't place quite as stringent codes on women in this country, certain expectations remained. Had Roxie and he already formally announced their betrothal, the scandal when she recanted it and married Charlie — Jon's own brother — would have soured her reputation. And reputation meant almost as much to Roxie as money.
Roxie's father might even have put his foot down and demanded that the originally planned marriage take place to avoid a slur on their family name. How much more adamant in avoiding a family disgrace might Caitlyn's grandfather be? How far would he go to erase or correct that humiliation?
The fact that Caitlyn had escaped the Blackfoot massacre was common knowledge in the mountains. Had word of the rest of her family's fate travelled back to their homeland? Had it been one of Jon's family members, he knew the answer to that. When his Uncle Jonathan had been reported missing at sea, the ships that provided the fortune to that branch of the family had scoured the ocean until they found him.
If he and Caitlyn could only get married, the problem would be solved. Even her grandfather — from what Jon could tell from the journal, an evidently influential man from a well-placed Irish family — couldn't breach the bonds of their vows.
And Caitlyn's recollection of Morning Star and Spirit Eagle's love was all one-sided. She deliberately refused to discuss the other side of the situation. Didn't she remember how frightened she had been when Tall Man found her caring for Little Sun — the child of the man who had caused him to lose face with his people? Did she really think Tall Man would forget his quest for vengeance while he and Spirit Eagle both walked this earth?
Family pride. When mixed with a desire for vengeance, Jon couldn't imagine a more deadly set of circumstances.
Mountain Magic Page 28
