by Nan Ryan
Maggie made a face of horror. She felt her heart squeeze as she envisioned the young Shanaco being turned away by his own family. “How cruel!”
He shrugged bare shoulders. “No matter. I had a loving father and mother and the greatest grandfather a boy could ever have.”
“Tell me about Gray Wolf,” she said, but her eyelids were growing heavy and she couldn’t stifle a yawn.
“I’ve kept you up too late. You’re sleepy.”
Maggie laid her head on his shoulder and snuggled close.
“A little,” she murmured, then closed her eyes, sighed and fell asleep.
He didn’t.
Shanaco stayed awake for a long time.
He held Maggie in his arms and gazed at her while she slept. For a time he smiled, captivated by the sight of her beautiful face in repose. He had never felt this way before. Had never loved a woman the way he loved this one. Would never love another. Would always love her.
His smile fled and his eyes clouded with despair. His jaw hardened. In a couple of days he would have to leave her.
Never to see her again.
It would be the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.
The fort and the reservation continued to gossip about all that had happened. The troopers were angry that Shanaco had managed to escape them. The Indians were glad he had gotten away.
The colonel’s distraught daughter had not left her quarters, refused to get out of bed. Except for mysterious nocturnal visits from the regimental surgeon and provost marshall, no one had called on her.
The worried Margaret Tullison was looking after Lois, attempting to calm the near hysterical young woman. And getting the sharp edge of Lois’s tongue for her efforts. Weeping almost constantly, Lois was angry that Daniel Wilde had not bothered to visit, had not even stopped by to check on her.
Whispered rumors of an early Saturday morning meeting with Major Courteen in attendance had begun circulating through the fort by midweek. But no one, not even the troopers, put much credence to the story. If it were true they would have heard what had taken place in such a meeting.
Besides, the major was in the regimental hospital, gravely ill. It was said that he had been in and out of consciousness and had now slipped into a deep coma.
For Maggie and Shanaco the days and nights went flying by—precious hours too quickly slipping away like the sands pouring through an hourglass.
Maggie knew that Shanaco must soon leave. She knew as well that it would break her heart to see him go. If she lived to be an old woman, she would never forget him. And she would never feel about another man the way she felt about him.
Never had she been as happy as she had these past few days, shut away from the world with this magnificent man, unknowing and uncaring what was going on outside.
Maggie was sure that Shanaco had been happy here, too.
She couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of pride in realizing that she had, in less than one unforgettable week, done what no one else—white or Comanche—had managed. She had tamed the mighty Shanaco. The silent, sullen warrior who had ridden onto the fort that sunny October morning now talked and laughed with ease. This once fierce war chief was, with her, the gentlest of men.
Dazzled by each other, they made love often.
Shanaco patiently taught the eager Maggie all he knew about sensual pleasure. It was, for them both, undiluted joy to make love the minute Maggie returned from her morning classes. And then again after the evening meal as a cold winter dusk fell outside. And especially in the silence of midnight while the rest of the fort was sleeping.
After the loving, Maggie relished lying in Shanaco’s strong arms to sleep. Yet there were times she didn’t sleep, couldn’t. She lay awake against him, dreading the nights ahead when he would no longer be here. Times when she would fall asleep only to wake up in the middle of night, gaze at him, and feel tears filling her eyes.
On a cold Wednesday evening—Shanaco’s sixth night at Maggie’s cottage—the two of them sat before the fire at bedtime. There was no light in the room save the dancing flames in the grate.
Shanaco, bare-chested but with a large white towel wrapped around his waist, sat in the armless rocker. Maggie, in her long white nightgown, sat on the floor between his knees.
Shanaco had told Maggie that from that first night he had come to her cottage with Double Jimmy and had seen her hairbrush lying on the bureau, he had yearned to brush her hair.
“Oh, please do,” she had said, and kissed him.
So now she sat hugging her knees while Shanaco carefully drew the gold-handled brush through her long, luxurious locks again and again.
“You have,” he said in a low, soft voice, “the most beautiful hair I have ever seen.”
Maggie smiled, pleased. “I’ll snip a lock for you to take with you when you go.” The brush abruptly paused. Maggie waited for him to speak. He said nothing. She drew a slow breath and said, “You’re just about fully recovered, aren’t you?”
“Yes, thanks to you.”
Maggie turned halfway about, laid her head back against his knee and looked up at him. “Shanaco, you must go. And soon. If you stay here they will find you and punish you even more than they already have.”
For a long moment he said nothing. At last he shook his head. “I can’t go.”
“You can’t…? What are you talking about? You have to go!”
Shanaco laid the hairbrush aside. He reached down and cupped Maggie’s cheeks. “I cannot leave you, sweetheart.”
She clasped his wrists. “But you must. You have to. You can’t stay here.”
Shanaco moved his hands from her face, leaned down and lifted her up onto his lap. He wrapped his arms loosely around her hips.
Looking into her eyes, he said, “No. I’ve made up my mind. I’m not leaving. I’ll turn myself in and—”
“No, you will not! I won’t let you,” she interrupted, her eyes snapping. “Don’t talk like that. You have to leave! You know you do. No one would believe you over the colonel’s daughter. You haven’t a chance if you stay here. Please, please, Shanaco, you simply must leave.”
“How can I? I love you, Maggie,” he said. “I’ll stay here and take my chances. I cannot leave you. I won’t.”
“You don’t have to leave me. I’ll go with you.” She was quick to come up with a solution. “I love you, darling. Take me with you. We can leave right away.”
“No, Maggie. That wouldn’t be fair to you. You’re happy here teaching the children and—”
“That was before you, before us,” she said. “I won’t be happy without you. I’ll be miserable. I love you, Shanaco. I’m wildly in love with you. Take me with you.”
“Maggie, Maggie,” he said, tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear, “I can list a hundred reasons why you shouldn’t come with me. The main one being that I am not accepted in the white world and never will be. If you come with me, you won’t be accepted, either.”
“I don’t give a fig! It makes no difference.”
“Yes, it does. You’ve told me about your aristocratic family and how much you love them. Do you really suppose they would approve of their beautiful young daughter marrying a half-breed?”
“I can’t answer that,” she told him truthfully. “From the time I was a child I was raised and taught to question everything.” She paused, then said, “I believe that once my mother and father meet you and see how much I love you, they will love you, too. Let me worry about my family.”
Shanaco exhaled. “Sweetheart, you will have no friends. You’ll be lonely.”
“I will have you. I won’t be lonely. I truly love you, Shanaco. If you love me, then take me with you.”
“You sure you wouldn’t live to regret it?”
“Never!” she said, with such conviction Shanaco finally began to smile. Her eyes flashing, she asked, “Where will you go? I’ll go anywhere with you!”
Shanaco laughed with delight and tightened his arms aro
und her. “I have a little place up in the high country of northern New Mexico. It’s beautiful but very remote. I was living there before I came to the fort.” Maggie looked surprised. He said, “It’s mine legally, Maggie. I bought some unclaimed federal land and built a house and corral on it. I plan on stocking the ranch next summer. The house isn’t much. I built it by myself and—”
“I’ll love any house you built,” she said, hugging him.
“You can fix it up any way you like,” he told her. “When we stop in Santa Fe to get married, we’ll get a wagon and pick up some things before we head on up to the ranch.”
“I can’t wait,” she said, her face aglow. Then immediately she sobered and asked, worried, “Does the command know about the ranch?”
“No.” Shanaco looked thoughtful for a minute. “I mentioned it to Double Jimmy in passing, told him approximately where the ranch is located. But no one else. I doubt he even remembers it.”
“Even if he does, Double Jimmy would never betray us.”
“Then it’s settled?”
“It is,” she said happily. “When shall we leave?”
“Can we be ready to go in forty-eight hours?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Good, but remember, you can’t say goodbye to anyone.”
She nodded. “Only to Old Coyote. He knows you’re here with me. He’s kept quiet, he can be trusted.”
“One more thing,” Shanaco said with a smile, “much as I enjoy being naked with you, I’m going to need something to wear, so I’ll have to—”
“That presents no real problem,” she said decisively. “I’ll simply send Old Coyote out to your cabin for some of your clothes. Whatever you need.”
Shanaco laughed and shook his head. “Sweetheart, Old Coyote can’t even remember where he lives half the time, so how—”
Interrupting, she said, “I believe there’s a very good reason he’s so forgetful. Bless his old heart, he was once, not so long ago, a respected and mighty war chief. An entire tribe depended on him, looked up to him, came to him for advice. Now he lives here on a reservation and has nothing to do. No one needs him. No one pays much attention to him.”
“That’s true,” Shanaco admitted.
“If we give him something to do, something he knows is really important, he will not let us down. He will not forget. I’d stake my life on it.”
Admonished, Shanaco said, “No wonder I love you so much, Maggie Bankhead. Not only are you the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, you’re also the wisest and the kindest.”
“So we enlist Old Coyote’s help. I will send him to your cottage for some clothes tomorrow night.”
“Indeed. And while he’s at it, there is a great deal of greenback money hidden in the cabin.” Shanaco lowered his voice conspiratorially. “It’s in a leather pouch hidden behind a loose stone at the south base of the fireplace. We’ll need cash for our journey.”
“What about horses?”
“I suppose he could take care of that as well. My black’s now stabled out there in the remuda with the Comanches’ other horses. But it will have to be late at night, way past his bedtime. No, that’s too much to ask. Tell him not to worry about the horses. You and I can slip out to the stables at midnight Friday. I can easily cut the black out of the herd, choose a gentle mare for you, and a packhorse to carry whatever you want to take along.”
“Pistol,” she said. “We have to take him.”
“We can take the wolfhound, but he can’t bark until we’re well away from the fort.”
“Pistol is well trained,” she said. “Still, I’m curious, what is it about you? Right from the beginning, you could silence him with a look.”
Shanaco just shrugged bare shoulders.
“It’s awfully late, we better go to bed.” She laughed then and said, “Not that it’ll do much good. I’m so excited I’ll never fall asleep.”
Shanaco grinned and hugged her close. “Let me rock you to sleep, baby.”
Thirty-Five
“Sounds like a great idea.” Maggie sighed contentedly. She laid her head on Shanaco’s shoulder and relaxed against him. Shanaco set the rocker in motion. Slowly he rocked, back and forth, back and forth.
“When are you going to…?” she began, but he silenced her.
“Don’t talk, Maggie. Just rest here quietly in my arms.”
“If you insist,” she said, and yawned sleepily.
“I do insist,” he said, his voice low and soothing. “However, before you fall asleep, please give me one little good-night kiss.”
“With pleasure.”
At once Shanaco’s mouth was on Maggie’s in the gentlest of kisses. But as he kissed her, Maggie moved her warm hand down along his right arm and over to his chest. She felt him tremble when her hand touched the hollow beneath his ribs. Shanaco instantly deepened the kiss, his lips persuasive, demanding.
Maggie thrilled to the hot touch of his drum-tight belly. Still, she had no intention of this going any further. He was right, she was sleepy. She needed to get some rest. So did he.
Shanaco’s lips finally left hers but hovered just above. He looked into Maggie’s eyes, raised a hand and tugged at the fasteners of her nightgown. The gown parted and her breasts burned against his naked chest.
He rocked the chair back and forth, back and forth.
“Shanaco, we really do need to get some sleep,” Maggie reminded him, then drew a shallow breath when Shanaco’s handsome face lowered to the swell of her bosom.
“I know we do,” he murmured.
Then, purposely making her wait so that she would grow steadily more aroused, Shanaco kissed the side of her throat, her collarbone, the sensitive spot behind her ear and the delicate hollow of her throat. When his lips began their agonizingly slow descent, Maggie squirmed and tensed in sweet anticipation.
She was no longer sleepy. She was wide-awake. She could not wait one more second to have his searing mouth at her breasts. Shanaco continued to tease her, kissing the softly rounded sides of her breasts and blowing his fever-hot breath on her nipples, knowing that by now those rigid nipples were stinging and longing for his kisses.
“Kiss me, Shanaco,” Maggie finally beseeched him.
Deviling her, he lifted his head and kissed her mouth. Maggie abruptly tore her lips from his, clutched a handful of his thick raven hair and said, “That’s not exactly what I meant.”
“No?” His silver eyes flashed in the firelight.
“That’s not where I most want to be kissed.”
“Then you’ll have to tell me or show me, sweetheart.”
She did.
Her hands clasping his hair, Maggie anxiously guided his face down to her breast, positioning his mouth directly over her left nipple. Then she sighed with pleasure when his lips warmly enclosed it.
“Yes,” she murmured approvingly. “Oh, yes, Shanaco.”
Shanaco gave her what she wanted. He kissed, licked and sucked at her nipples until she was gasping and clutching his shoulders and arching her back to press her breasts ever closer to his hot face.
Finally she began whispering, “Darling, darling, let’s get into bed.”
With one last plucking kiss, Shanaco released a pebble-hard nipple and raised his head. Her pulse pounding, Maggie immediately got up off his lap and rose to stand on shaky legs. Shanaco quickly came to his feet directly behind her, dropped his covering towel and slipped his arms around her waist.
Maggie felt his nakedness against her. She felt the animal heat of him pressing against her. Her eyes closed as she felt her long nightgown slowly sliding up her legs, past her hips and over her stomach and breasts. She shivered and raised her arms to help. Shanaco lifted her gown up over her head and dropped it to the floor.
She was naked against him.
She swayed slightly, not sure her weak legs would support her. His strong arms came around her again. She leaned back against him. She could feel his smooth chest beneath her shoulders, his h
eavy erection pressing against the cleft of her buttocks.
She became aware that his beautiful, artistic hands were on her. All over her. His right hand was at her breasts, caressing, lifting, plucking at the kiss-moistened nipples. His left was on her quivering stomach, his lean forefinger tracing the line of baby-fine hair going down her belly.
Maggie turned her face inward, sighed, and wondered when he was going to carry her to the bed. She murmured his name when his hand came to rest on the triangle of red curls between her thighs. Kissing the side of her throat and possessively cupping her groin, Shanaco said huskily into her ear, “Sweetheart, tell me this is mine, say it belongs to me. Say you belong to me.”
“It’s yours, my love,” she told him. “No one but you has ever touched me, will ever touch me. I belong to you.”
“Ah, baby,” he murmured, then raked gently through the springy red coils and began caressing that tiny button of flesh that caused Maggie to shudder with building ecstasy.
Maggie could feel his hard, hot erection throb against her. Her temperature immediately rose. Were they standing too close to the fire? Feeling feverish and breathless, she lifted her head from Shanaco’s supporting shoulder and guiltily looked down to watch as he caressed her.
It was incredibly erotic to see his bronzed forearm lying against her pale white belly, his long, lean fingers between her legs, intimately stroking her burning flesh.
She felt her face flush with guilt and quickly closed her eyes when, his firm jaw coming to rest against her temple, Shanaco said in soft, low tones, “I, too, find it incredibly thrilling to watch us like this, my hand loving you this way.” When she gave no reply, he said, “Maggie, you need never be embarrassed with me. Open your eyes, sweetheart, and we’ll enjoy this together.”
Maggie opened her eyes. And she said, “I admit it excites me to see your hand between my legs, touching me, caressing me.”
Shanaco smiled and continued to gently massage her until finally, squirming and tingling, she said, “Please, darling, let’s go to bed now.”
Shanaco took his hand away, swiftly turned her about to face him and said, “Maggie, remember when I said that since I first saw your brush on the bureau I wanted to brush your hair?”
