“My grandfather, Stands Tall, hates all White-eyes. Because my mother had died the previous year, he had no way of knowing my father was his son-in-law. After he’d killed my father, Stands Tall took me captive. That was when he learned the truth—that he’d killed his daughter’s husband.”
“How sad! If only he’d known.” Bay felt tears misting her eyes, but since her hands were full, there was no way she could wipe them away. Long Quiet’s thumb reached out and caught a salty drop. She felt a tingling deep inside when he raised his thumb to his mouth and licked it away.
Long Quiet took another plum from her basket and tossed it in his palm. His eyes were on her, but his thoughts were focused on the past. “I wonder if it would have made a difference if he’d known,” he mused. At Bay’s shocked expression, he continued, “Stands Tall was a far-seeing man. He realized years ago the danger of allowing the white man a foothold in Comanchería. He knew there would eventually be a battle for the land. He was right. It’s already begun.”
Bay had remained silent, unable to contradict the truth of what he’d said, unable to soothe his troubled look with a clever answer. But he hadn’t let the subject rest, coming back to it in later days, worrying it like a lone wolf haunts an aging buffalo.
It wasn’t until their conversation yesterday that she’d finally known what it was that bothered him. She’d been sent out to harvest pecans. It wasn’t difficult work, but she had to do it on her knees or bent over, and after a while, her back ached. She’d just stopped for a rest and was stretching a knot out of her back muscles when he’d ridden up.
“Are you stiff?”
“A little.”
“Let me help.”
“I’ll be all right. I—”
But by then his hands had slipped up under her poncho and his thumbs had found the clenched muscles just above her waist and were working their way up to the ache in her shoulders. It felt so good she forgot about objecting. Bay’s eyes were closed and her chin had dropped to her chest. She was immensely enjoying the strong, certain touch of his hands on her skin.
She could hear the grin in his voice when he said, “I couldn’t do this to a Texas woman.”
“What?”
“You’d be all laced up in a corset and there’d be several layers of clothes between your skin and my hands.”
Bay had flushed, but when she’d started to pull away he’d said, “Don’t. I won’t tease you anymore. I can feel how tense you are. Let me help.”
It did feel good. And this wasn’t Texas; it was Comanchería. “All right,” she agreed with a sly glance over her shoulder, “but only if you tell me how you learned so much about white women’s clothes.”
“When I was seventeen, I left Comanchería and lived for a while among the White-eyes. I went to the white man’s school and learned much about his ways.”
“Standing Tall allowed it?”
From the corner of her eye Bay saw that Long Quiet’s lips had compressed in a straight line. “It was not by my choice that I went, or his either.”
“Oh.” When he didn’t offer any further explanation, she asked, “Where did you go to school?”
“In Boston.”
She grinned in disbelief and turned to face him, breaking contact with his hands. “I went to school there, too!”
“I know.”
“What?”
“I saw you once,” he admitted.
“You did? When? Where?”
“At a cotillion. I even asked you to dance.”
“No! I would have remembered.” She searched his face, trying to imagine how he would have looked without the braids, with his bronzed chest covered by a stiff white linen shirt and silk vest, and with kerseymere trousers covering his long legs. His next words jerked her back to the present.
“You only had eyes for one man that evening.”
“Oh. Jonas.” She said the name sadly, as one would speak of the dead.
“I believe that was his name.”
“Jonas wanted to marry me.”
“And you?”
Bay dropped to her knees and began harvesting pecans again, collecting them on the piece of buckskin that lay nearby. In a moment Long Quiet dropped to his knees to join her. Knowing he was still waiting for an answer, she said, “Yes. I would have married Jonas in Boston, even without my father’s permission, if he hadn’t been called back home to Louisiana by his father’s illness. But it hardly matters anymore, does it?”
When he frowned, she quickly changed the subject. “Tell me, did you try to find your father’s family when you were back east?”
He hesitated, as though he wanted to pursue his own question further, but then answered hers. “Yes, I looked for them.”
“And . . .” she prodded.
“I found them,” he admitted. “My uncle, my father’s younger brother, had inherited the family business.”
“And what was that?”
He grinned. “A rather large New York bank.”
“Oh, my.” Bay looked down at the pecans she’d just spilled on the ground and blushed a bright red. Bay was frustrated by the fact that each time Long Quiet visited her, she became unusually clumsy. She had no explanation for the phenomenon except that whenever he was near, her mind wasn’t completely on what she was doing. Fortunately, Long Quiet never seemed to notice anything amiss.
“What did your uncle say when he saw you?” she asked as they scooped up pecans.
“He offered me my father’s inheritance . . . and a job.”
Bay sat back and wiped the sweat from her brow. “You would have been rich! Why didn’t you take his offer?”
“I didn’t want his money. I always knew I would return to Comanchería.”
“How did you know that?”
“It’s the land of my grandfather, my home.”
“What of your father’s home?”
“My father had no home.”
“It would be more accurate to say he had two homes.” She forced him to meet her eyes before she said, “So do you.”
He was silent for a moment, as though unwilling to admit the truth of what she’d said. He picked up two large pecans and, holding them both in one hand, closed his fist, crushing them against one another. When he opened his hand again, the shells had cracked, and he offered the sweet nuts to her.
“A man cannot have two homes. I am Comanche, a True Human Being.”
She hadn’t argued with him, but somehow they’d started comparing the Comanches, who were wanderers, with the whites, who stayed in one place. Long Quiet understood the need of the white man to possess the land, and he understood the need of the Comanche to roam free. But which one was right? Could they ever reconcile their differences?
Bay wasn’t sure Long Quiet recognized the significance of the dilemma he presented. He talked around and around it, never seeming to come to the point. Until she’d realized that coming to the point would have meant making a final choice: Which side should he take?
And she was sure Long Quiet didn’t want to have to make that choice.
Over the past two weeks she’d come to feel like she’d known Long Quiet all her life. She would have called the two of them friends, although she wasn’t sure friends touched quite as much as they did. And he’d claimed her with his touch as surely as he’d claimed the stallion.
The fact they slept beside each other every night brought them even closer, so Bay felt the pain of his indecision as her own. Her heart went out to him, torn as he was between two peoples, bleeding for the wounded on both sides of the battle he foresaw in the future.
It didn’t take much soul-searching to admit that she found in his plight a mirror of her own inner battle—between what Rip wanted her to be and what she felt she could, or ought to, be.
The big difference was that a choice would eventually be forced upon Long Quiet by the inevitable conflict between two peoples; Bay could have gone on indefinitely walking the fine line between what her father desired of her an
d what she wished to be—if she hadn’t been captured by the Comanches.
Her captivity had curtailed her father’s plans for her life, but it hadn’t really solved her problem, only changed it. She wasn’t any closer now to knowing who Bay Stewart was than she had been three years ago.
Bay rubbed the pony’s nose again, then ran her hand down his sleek neck. All she knew was that she dreaded the thought of a future without Long Quiet.
Long Quiet stood unobserved and watched Bay’s easy familiarity with his pony. Two weeks ago it had been all he could do to get her to approach the animal. Things had changed since then. He’d wooed her in the only way he knew. He’d given as much of himself as she asked. He’d answered her questions. He’d touched her with gentleness. He’d dared to offer help in her woman’s work when he knew his Comanche friends would have scorned him had they but known of it.
The labors of the day had borne their fruit in the darkness. She had sought him out to touch, a little at first, and then more and more, until he’d awoken this morning to find them so tangled it was hard to know where one began and the other ended. He took a deep breath and exhaled. He’d done all he could. The rest was up to her.
“Hihites, Shadow.”
Bay jumped as Long Quiet stepped up beside her. He reached out to scratch the pinto’s other ear. “I wish you wouldn’t sneak up on me like that,” she chided.
He grinned. “I didn’t want to give you a chance to run away.”
Bay turned and looked at him. “I wouldn’t have run away.” Her hand stilled on the pony’s ear as their eyes caught and held. It was the pony’s insistent nudge that broke the spell between them. Confused, Bay turned her attention back to the pinto. She scratched its ear once again, then, conscious of Long Quiet’s hand so close to her own, dropped hers and moved away.
“I have something to tell you,” he said.
She stopped and turned back to him.
“Let’s go sit down where it’s cool, so we can talk,” he said, gesturing toward the late-afternoon shade of a nearby rocky butte.
Bay walked a little ahead of him. She settled herself with her back against stone that had barely lost the heat of the day and stretched her legs out in front of her. Long Quiet dropped down beside her, resting his forearms on his knees. His unfocused gaze instinctively searched the prairie for hidden danger in the clumps of spiny mesquite and catclaw shrubs. Fatigue bowed his shoulders and tightened the lines around his eyes and mouth. Bay thought maybe he hadn’t been sleeping well. But then, she hadn’t slept well the past two weeks, either.
While their days had been spent in pleasant conversation, their nights had been fraught with tension. Bay wasn’t sure who was to blame for that. It was easier to name Long Quiet as the culprit. After all, he was the one who’d demanded she lie beside him. But he hadn’t insisted that she seek out the heat of his body at night or that she burrow close. Bay blamed her actions on her loneliness. It had simply felt too good to be held in his arms not to take advantage of the opportunity.
This morning she’d awoken with her knee pressed intimately between his thighs, her breasts flattened against his chest, her nose and mouth nestled in the arch of his throat, her hands . . . Bay flushed as she remembered where her hands had been. One hand had been tangled in his hair, while the other had been curved snugly around Long Quiet’s naked buttocks, holding him tight against her belly.
Bay closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as she remembered what had happened then. Long Quiet’s callused fingertips had slowly traveled the length of her spine, from the dimples above her buttocks to the nape of her neck. She’d shivered and arched her body into his from thigh to breast.
There had been nothing to fear in their closeness, and she’d allowed herself to enjoy the pleasurable tensing within her body. She didn’t for a moment suspect Long Quiet had more in mind than holding her exactly like this. After all, it had been two weeks and not once had he forced an unwanted touch. Nor was this touch unwanted, Bay had admitted to herself.
It was hard to say what would have happened if Little Deer hadn’t chosen that moment to squirm in between them. In the light of day, Bay told herself she was grateful to the child. At least, she thought she was. But remembering the look on Long Quiet’s face, she didn’t think he’d been grateful at all. She looked at him now. Did he want to talk about what had happened this morning? Was that why he seemed so . . . distracted?
As though sensing Bay’s eyes on him, Long Quiet turned to her. He straightened his back and leaned against the rocky butte, letting his hands hang off his bent knees. Then he shifted again, straightening his legs and letting his hands drop to his lap. But he couldn’t seem to get comfortable. He rubbed at the frown wrinkling the bridge of his nose, then looked off into the distance. “I have to leave here soon.”
Bay was stunned. “What?”
“I have to meet Creed in Laredo in about ten days.” His voice grated with tension as he added, “Then I’ll be going down into Mexico on some business, and I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“You never said—”
“It doesn’t matter now what I said or didn’t say,” he interrupted irritably. “The fact is I have to leave. I can stay until the buffalo hunt is finished, but no longer. Once the hunt begins, we won’t have much time together. That’s why I wanted to talk with you now.”
But he didn’t say anything, just pursed his lips and stared out over the prairie.
When Bay couldn’t stand the suspense another second, she blurted, “What did you want to talk about?”
“I want . . . I want to know if you’ve reconsidered your decision to stay here.”
He sounded angry, and somehow Bay knew that what he’d said wasn’t at all what he’d intended to say.
“I can’t leave! You know that.”
“Why not?”
Bay scrambled to her feet, away from the intensity of his stare. “We’ve been through all this before.”
He came swiftly to his feet behind her, his strong hands clasping her shoulders to keep her from fleeing. “I’m asking again.” He struggled for control, then said more quietly, “After this morning . . .”
Bay waited for him to finish his thought. When he dropped his hands, she turned to search his face. She took a deep breath and asked, “What about this morning?”
“If you won’t come away with me, I want at least the memory of the two of us together. This morning I would have had that—you were willing, I think—had not Little Deer come between us.”
She flushed, unable to admit what was nevertheless true. “What do you want me to say? That I am willing?”
“Are you?”
Bay bit her lower lip. She could tell Long Quiet was tense, anxious. But his eyes burned with desire. Anticipation sent the blood rushing in her veins. Fear knotted her stomach and choked her speech. This was so cold, so calculated. Why couldn’t he have simply taken her and not made her responsible for the decision?
Sensing her fear, he spoke. “I will not force you, Shadow. Above all things, I want you willing.”
Bay felt desire welling inside her. Yes! Why not say yes? Why shouldn’t she know what it felt like to take this man inside her, to make him a part of her? When he left, she would be so alone! The memory of one night . . . and not a night with just any man, but this particular man.
She admired the patience that had allowed him to tame the stallion instead of breaking it. She appreciated the gentleness that had allowed him to hold a child in his arms and tell her a bedtime story. She respected the strength of character that had allowed him to do a woman’s work undaunted by the possibility of another’s scorn. And only this morning her body had heated to the touch of his hands.
Yet she was afraid to make such a monumental decision. No wonder she’d been such a disappointment to her father. Bay felt despair rising, and it brought a lump to her throat. She dropped her chin to her chest. Why couldn’t she answer him the way she wished?
Long Quiet st
epped back, and the chance was gone. With a fluid grace that never ceased to amaze her, he turned and strode away.
Long Quiet was in a killing mood when he left Bay, furious that he’d left the choice up to her, furious that she’d denied him. He tried to tell himself it was better this way.
But it wasn’t. Now he would spend the rest of his life knowing he’d held her in his arms . . . but never made her his woman.
Chapter 9
BAY LOOKED OUT OVER THE HUGE HERD OF BUFFALO WITH an awe that hadn’t diminished over the years. The humpbacked beasts drifted across the prairie like waves of water on sand, suddenly flooding the land and as suddenly gone again. Today, the Comanches would harvest what buffalo they needed for food and clothing to survive the winter. Both Long Quiet and Many Horses were among the hunters on horseback who circled the mammoth shaggy animals. The hunt was dangerous for all involved, and Bay shivered with the excitement she always felt during the hunt.
The past three days without Long Quiet had been miserable. One minute she hoped he’d come to her in the darkness. The next she was glad he’d made the break between them so complete. But until he left the village there was always the chance he would change his mind, and the thought of what would happen then had left her edgy and nervous. It was all she could do to wait quietly with the other women to butcher the buffalo once they were killed. After conversing so often with Long Quiet, it was harder to hold her tongue and merely listen when the women began to talk.
“Many Horses hunts without the protection of his puha because of Shadow,” She Touches First said loud enough for Bay to easily overhear her.
“What has happened?” one of the women asked.
“He Decides It made medicine after Many Horses gave Shadow to Long Quiet. The puhakut told Many Horses he had broken his tabu by giving Shadow to another man and that it could be dangerous for him if she stayed in the village.”
“Should that choice not be up to Many Horses?” another of the women pointed out.
“She has used her medicine to cloud Many Horses’ eyes to the harm that may befall him,” She Touches First said. “That is why he has refused to send her away. We should cast her out from among us and leave her to work her sorcery with the vultures and the wolves.”
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