Life was going to be good! They were far away from the river now, and probably Tommy and Luke and anyone else who might give them trouble were dead. No one would connect River to anything. Surely the Maker of Breath would make it be so.
For the first time in her life she felt happy and free. River was kinder to her than anyone had ever been. What a wonderful feeling to be truly loved by a good man. She knew that soon River would want to mate with her again, and she was surprised that she looked forward to it. She was not afraid, even though she remembered the pain. River had promised it would get better, and she believed him. The thought of lying with him again sent shivers of passion through her blood, and brought the delicious ache to her insides.
She finished washing the clothes and towels and piled them up on the rock, picking them up one by one then and carrying them to low tree branches, where she hung them to dry; then she went back to put more wood on the campfire.
What would River want to eat when he returned? Maybe he would bring back enough flour for her to make a berry pie for him. Without a real oven it would be difficult, but she could make do with a dutch oven over the fire. She forced back a gnawing fear that River might not get back before dark. He had promised that he would. He had never yet broken a promise.
She put on a little more wood, then straightened when she heard an odd snorting sound. Her heart pounded. There were all kinds of wild animals in these mountains. When she was with River she gave no thought to them. But alone she was not so brave. River had left his musket for her, primed and loaded, as well as an extra hand pistol.
Emma stood still and listened. The sound came again, and she cocked her head, surprised that it sounded very much like the pigs on Luke’s farm. She breathed easier for just a moment. She was used to pigs, had no fear of them. But then it dawned on her that there were no settlements near enough for domesticated pigs to be wandering about.
She felt ice move through her blood at the only other possibility—a wild boar! Few animals were as vicious as a wild boar could be, not even a bear. She eased her way toward the musket. She was not the best shot, and she realized that if she had to use the gun, she would have to make its one shot count; there might not be a second chance for her. If a boar charged, there would be no time for reloading.
She swallowed, feeling sweaty all over as she reached for the musket and raised it. The pistol rested on a stump beside the musket. She backed against one of the remaining walls of the old cabin, waiting, struggling not to breathe too hard even though her heart pounded wildly. She prayed that whatever was just outside the wall, it would wander off. She gripped the musket, watching right and left, for the animal could come from any direction, as the entire end of the cabin was gone.
She heard the snorting again, this time louder and lasting longer. Where was River? If only he were here! He would know what to do.
Finally, sniffing the ground as it moved around the collapsed wall to her left, a huge male boar appeared. It stopped, just then seeing her, and lifted its head, wiggling its huge, pink nose and sniffing hard. She raised the musket. The boar came a little closer, then snorted loudly. Her vision blurred by tears, Emma aimed the musket at its head and pulled the trigger. Fire shot out the end of the long barrel.
In the distance River Joe halted his horse, looking with surprise in the direction of the gunshot. Emma! He kicked his horse into a hard run, pulling the pack horse along behind.
Chapter Ten
River Joe’s horse was lathered by the time he reached camp. At first he saw only the clothes hanging about in the trees. The campfire crackled and a pan of hot water sat on a grate above the fire.
River Joe was dismounted before his horse even came to a full halt. He pulled his musket from its boot. “Emma!” he shouted.
She peered around the end of one of the half-missing walls, holding a huge knife in her hand that was covered with blood, as was the old, cotton shirt she had put on in place of the pretty dress. His heart froze at the sight of her, and he hurried on long legs to where she stood.
“Emma, what in God’s name—”
He reached out for her but she backed away. “Don’t touch me, River. You’ll get blood all over you. I just wanted to be sure it was you that was coming before I called back.” She grinned then. “Look! I got us some meat!”
She pointed to a pile of leaves, where the boar lay gutted out. River Joe frowned, setting aside his musket and walking closer. He looked from the wild pig back to Emma, astonishment on his face.
“You killed a wild boar?”
She nodded, her pride and excitement showing. “With the musket. It only took one shot. He’d make good meat for us, wouldn’t he, River? Luke used to make me help butcher hogs back on the farm. So I thought I’d go ahead and start on him. I didn’t know when you might come back.” She looked down at the old shirt, holding out her arms. “I took off the dress so I wouldn’t get any blood on it. I hope you don’t care too much about this old shirt.”
He just stared at her for a moment, his alarm changing to surprise, then pride, then an aching desire. After he had rescued her she was left with no bloomers. The shirt hung to just above her knees, but he knew that under it she wore nothing. Her legs were slim and shapely, and seeing her that way, really looking well for the first time since he had rescued her, brought a wave of fresh desire that swept through him as though someone had put something extra-warm in his blood.
“No, I don’t mind,” he said rather absently.
Emma felt the same warmth flow through her blood at the way his dark eyes moved over her. It would happen again. She wanted it to happen, but she wasn’t sure what she should do, if she should tell him or say nothing. Was he waiting for her to say she was well enough? She still knew so little about men, at least men like River.
“If…if you can help me cut it up, River, we can smoke some, and pack some in lard. Did you bring lard?”
He nodded. At the moment he wasn’t giving much thought to the dead boar. He folded his arms. “Well, aren’t you something?” He looked down at the dead pig again, then grinned and laughed lightly. “I’ll be damned.” He looked back at her. “When did you learn to shoot that good?”
She shrugged. “I really can’t. I just prayed to the Maker of Breath that the first shot would be good, because I knew I wouldn’t have time for a second. I just aimed, and pulled the trigger, and down he went.” She was smiling, but her eyes suddenly teared. “Actually…I was scared to death,” she said, her voice breaking, even though she was still smiling. “There’s nothing meaner than a wild pig, I always heard. And it was getting dark and I didn’t know if you’d get back before the sun went down. And…well…anyway I didn’t have any choice, because he was going to come after me. I could see it in those mean eyes.” She swallowed and blinked back tears, sniffing and keeping a smile. “Are you proud of me, River? I got us some meat.”
He grinned more, the sweet, warm smile that made her love him all the more. “Of course I am proud of you. And so will my people be proud when I tell them. You did well today, Agiya.” His eyes moved over her again, and she read the desire there. He walked closer and grasped her arms, leaning down and kissing the top of her head. “I will help you butcher the boar and we will eat well tonight. Tomorrow we must be on our way again.”
He stepped away and removed his weapons belt and buckskin shirt. She stared at the broad shoulders and powerful arms as he removed his knife from its sheath on the weapons belt and walked over to the boar. She watched him for a moment, somewhat overwhelmed by his size, truly looking at him for the first time since her injuries. To her relief, his wound seemed healed. She watched his big blade slice through the boar easily, and remembered that same knife slicing into Hank Toole’s heart.
Hank Toole. If only the man’s death were not there constantly to haunt her. River Joe had killed him. If people figured it out…How could she ever live without him now? It would be impossible. She would rather die.
She walked over to
help him with the boar, and for the next hour they sliced off and skinned the best pieces.
“We do not have time to prepare this thing like we should. Some parts will have to go to waste,” he said. “We will pack most of it in lard until we get even farther away where we can make a more permanent camp again and take a few days to smoke it. The folks at the settlement know about the flood below and they are sending people down with supplies. That means it cannot be long before the Jasmine is found, along with Hank’s body. We still have plenty of time, I am sure. By the time he is found we will be even farther into the mountains. Once we reach my people, we will be almost impossible to find. We will just lie low awhile and wait.”
She didn’t say anything, but he noticed her slicing almost savagely into the meat. He glanced at her face and saw tears on her cheeks. He stopped his cutting and grasped her wrist.
“Do not get upset, Emma. You have been sick. Nothing is going to happen. I promise.”
“You can’t promise that,” she said quietly, sniffing and wiping at her eyes with her shoulder.
“Emma, most likely when that body is found, it will be quickly buried like all the others, maybe in a mass grave. It will be so bloated no one will notice the knife wound. They will take it for granted he drowned.”
“What about Hank’s slave?” she sniffed.
He sighed deeply, returning to his cutting. “He most likely drowned, too. He fell into the river, remember?”
“But what if he lived, River? What if?”
River Joe frowned, setting aside some meaty ribs. “He would be too scared to say anything. They might not believe him. They might think he killed Hank himself. Who is going to believe a slave? I am sorry to put it that way. But it is a fact that no white man is going to take the word of a Negro; they have no more use for them than for the Indians.”
She set aside a piece of meat and sat back on her ankles. He glanced at her thighs, already sure he would never get through this night without making love to her. He was so proud of what she had done, so happy she was getting well, so enraptured by her slender beauty.
“Why are people like that, River? What makes the color of somebody’s skin mean they’re not as good as the next man?”
“Nothing. It is all in the mind. Somewhere back in time the white man decided that if a man’s skin was darker, he was somehow inferior. And they think the same about other whites who care about dark men, or live with them, like me. Because I was brought up by the Cherokee, I am considered just as bad as they are, although I am not sure what that is supposed to mean.”
They finished the boar and put some of the meat on a spit over the fire. Emma added some wood to the fire while River Joe went for the soap and a cloth to wash with. “Let’s go wash off this blood while that meat cooks,” he told her. “We will pack the rest of it in lard later. I have to unload the horses, too, for the night.”
She walked barefoot with him to the creek, where they both knelt down and scrubbed their hands and arms.
“Oh, River, this shirt is covered with blood.”
He grinned. “Take it off and wash it then.” He wiped his hands and chest with the cloth, then handed it to her, a smile on his lips. Her face was crimson as she took the cloth.
“I…I didn’t bring my dress with me.”
His smiled faded, every bone in his body aching for her. “You do not need the dress.”
Their eyes held. She felt the same commanding power she had felt that night in the shed. She knew her cheeks were red and hot, knew she was trembling at the way he looked at her. She wanted this, yet felt so inexperienced, so helpless. He reached out and began unbuttoning the shirt, and she did not stop him, nor did she want to.
He stood up, grasping her arms and pulling her up with him. As he opened the shirt and pushed it off her shoulders, she let it drop to the ground. He pulled her close, pressing her breasts against the skin of his bare chest, and she felt almost faint with desire and anticipation.
Quietly he ran his hands over her back, down over her bottom, reaching down between her legs and pulling up with big, strong hands so that she came up and wrapped her legs around his hips. He encircled her in his powerful arms then, kissing at her shoulder, her neck, moving to her mouth. He kissed her hard, deep, groaning lightly. Her long, silken hair caressed the backs of his hands.
He moved his mouth from hers, running it along her cheek, lightly licking her skin, biting at her ear. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he walked with her, carrying her back to camp and to the bedroll, still holding her as he kissed her hair, her eyes.
“I want you so bad, River,” she whispered. “I just don’t know what to do.”
“You do not have to know.” He kissed her eyes again. “I told you that before.”
He kissed her hard again, holding her tight against him with one arm while he ran his other hand down over the center of her bottom, his fingers reaching under her to probe at the sweet moistness there that told him she was ready to try this again. She whimpered and gasped at the touch, fire ripping through every bone and every nerve.
“It will be good,” he told her, his voice husky with desire. He grasped her around the waist then, pulling her away and lowering her, breathing deeply at the sight of her standing there naked, desire setting him afire. He unlaced his buckskin pants and removed them along with his moccasins, then removed his loincloth. He stood there in all his manly glory, and for the first time in full light she looked upon her man. He took her hands gently in his own and moved them to touch that mysterious part of him that she had wondered about.
She almost felt like crying with the wonder of it. He was so soft, yet what she knew he would put inside of her seemed too huge to fit. No wonder it had hurt that first time. Was he really right in telling her it would hurt less and less?
“Don’t ever be afraid to touch me, Emma,” he said, “or afraid that I would hurt you.”
He placed his hands on her hips and slowly lowered himself, kissing at her lips, her shoulders. He rested on his knees and caressed her breasts, then pulled one into his soft, warm mouth, making her whimper with desire. He moved to the other breast, drawing all her desires toward him as he sucked on its sweet fruit.
His lips moved over her belly then, lightly kissing at the blond hair that hid that which he desired most. She remembered his words, about tasting more than her breasts. She never dreamed it would be possible for her to let a man do more, yet even now he was coaxing her down to the bedroll while he still kissed at her.
He explored her intimately, and the ecstasy of it made her cry out his name in helpless abandon. How thrilling it was to please this beautiful, tender man. A lovely explosion rippled through her belly and made her cry out, and his mouth moved back up again from her belly to her breasts, her neck, while he moved between her slender legs, and that most glorious part of him quickly pushed.
She cried out. Yes, the pain was still there. But he was right. It was not as bad as the first time. And a yearning deep in her belly made her want him inside her, made her arch up to him and cry out with the ecstasy of taking him inside herself.
“Agiya,” he whispered, groaning then, moving rhythmically, grasping her under the hips and pushing deeply, over and over until she wondered if she would die from the thrill of it. He whispered more words in the Cherokee tongue, words she did not understand but knew were words of love.
She grasped at his arms, rising up to him, her blond hair hanging down to the ground as she kissed at his chest and shoulders. Their lips met then, his tongue invading her mouth just as he invaded her elsewhere. She could not get enough of him, nor he of her. They moved in the thrilling rhythm for several minutes, his thrusts deep and hard, the pain disappearing and ecstasy replacing it.
She lay back and he rose then, grasping her hips in his big hands and actually pulling her to him as he watched the invasion, fire ripping through his loins at the sight of her flat belly and full, firm breasts, her closed eyes and the look of joy on her
beautiful young face.
He changed his thrusts to circular motions, and his eyes were glassy with pleasure when she gasped at the new movement. She grasped at his forearms, then groaned his name when his life spilled inside of her. She could feel the added swelling, the throbbing release.
Tiny fears of getting pregnant flashed through her mind, for her mother had suffered so much from miscarriages and had died giving birth. But she told herself to ignore her fears. She didn’t want River to know she was afraid of anything. And after all, it couldn’t be that easy, and surely one didn’t always get a baby this way.
He was whispering her name now, coming down to hold her close, kissing her face.
“Oh, that was so wonderful,” he murmured, kissing her hair. “It was even more wonderful than the first time, because I could see you…” he kissed her several times over, “and taste you.” He kissed her again, a deep, probing kiss. “And I knew this time it felt good to you,” he said softly.
“River!” she whispered, her eyes closed.
“We will do it again…so many times, Agiya. I am so happy you are well now.”
“I love you so much, River. I never knew I could feel like this.”
He caressed her hair, smiling as he rose on one elbow. “My little hunter. You have provided the meat this time. Maybe I should send you on the hunts instead of going myself.”
She smiled then, reaching up and touching his face. “I think we would end up very hungry.”
He laughed lightly, running a hand over her belly and massaging it lightly. “We should turn the meat over the fire, and pack the rest. And I have to unload the horses.”
“I know.”
Their eyes held for several long seconds. She lifted herself to hug him. “I want to do it again, River. Is that bad?”
He kissed her neck, moving a hand around and under her left leg, lifting it and bending it toward her body as he moved on top of her again.
The Bride Series (Omnibus Edition) Page 15
