Lakota Legacy: Wolf DreamerCowboy Days and Indian NightsSeven Days

by Madeline Baker

  Michael put his arm around her as a rocketing sound slammed into the house. Sunny squeezed her eyes closed, hearing what sounded like screams and screeches and a train. There was no sense of movement, no sound of things breaking overhead, just this unbelievable roar of sound that was so loud it drowned out even Jessie’s cries. Sunny felt a hiccuping sensation in her throat and realized she was letting go of little sobs herself, mute and primitive, the mewling terror of a mother at the mercy of nature. “Please, please, please,” she whispered.

  It seemed to last a thousand years.

  And then, it just stopped, as if some giant hand had squashed the bug. It took a second to sink in that it was over. Sunny slumped backward against the wall and closed her eyes. As if the storm had taken her energy with it, her limbs felt limp and beyond her control. Jessie curled against her chest, exhausted, too, by the drama, her breath coming in the short, shuddering breaths of post-hysteria. Next to them, Michael bent forward and dropped his head into his hands.

  They simply sat there like that, unmoving, for long minutes. Sunny couldn’t even get her mind around any thoughts—it was just images, flashing and flashing, and she finally said, “I have never been that terrified in my whole life. I didn’t even know you could be that scared and live through it.”

  Michael straightened. Let go of a sigh. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  “Now what?” Sunny asked.

  “Now we go see what it took and what it left behind.”

  Jessie startled a little when Sunny stood up. “It’s okay, sweetie. We’re just going upstairs.”

  Michael bent down to Jessie’s level, touched her cheek. “You okay, kiddo?”

  To Sunny’s amazement, the baby reached for him, urgently. He took her gently, and cradled her close for a minute, rocking back and forth, one hand on her head. “That was pretty scary, wasn’t it? Scared me, too.”

  Sunny bowed her head against the ache his tenderness gave her. Mutely, she followed him upstairs. The dogs’ nails clicked on the stairs behind them.

  “Oh, my goodness!” Sunny exclaimed, emerging into the light and following Michael into the yard.

  There was so much mess that it was hard to sort it all out at first. Tangles of wires and wood and huge balls of hail and tree branches. One by one, she picked out details. An upended tree pointed stripped-clean roots to the sky, and there was a twist of metal she finally figured out might once have been a tractor, but she only made that much of a connection because there was a tire attached.

  She turned in a slow circle. The house was fine, untouched except for a rain of leaves stuck to the sides, and most of the trees bordering the river looked fine, if a little battered. The corral was broken, missing pieces in three places, and the barn doors stood open, but from what she could see, the roof was still intact. “Looks like you got lucky,” Sunny said.

  He touched her arm and Sunny turned. “What?”

  Gently, he slipped his hand beneath her elbow and drew her a few feet to the right, then pointed.

  Sunny stared, feeling again that odd sense of disorientation, that struggle her brain was making to put the pieces back together properly. Because there was something wrong with this picture, and she couldn’t figure out what it was. The angle was wrong, and she wondered if there was a tree missing, framing the view wrong.

  And then it hit her. “Oh, my God,” she said, and stumbled sideways, her stomach heaving. She vomited into the grass and simultaneously burst into tears.

  Her house was gone.

  Michael gripped her arm, gently and firmly. “Come on, let’s get you some tea.”

  “I can’t… I don’t…”

  “I got you. Come on. Put your arm around me.”

  And because he was the only solid thing to hang on to in the middle of chaos, Sunny did just that. Put her arm around him, leaned into him and let him help her into the house, where he settled her at the table, deposited Jessica in her lap, and put the kettle on. From a cupboard, he took a small bottle of brandy and poured some into a water glass. “Drink up,” he said, and Sunny did.

  It helped.

  Jessie spied something when he opened a cupboard. “Cookie?”

  “You mind?” Michael asked.

  Sunny shook her head. When he gave the baby her cookie, he touched Sunny’s shoulder. “It’s a big loss. Don’t try to take it in all at once.”

  She stared out the window. “Everything I had was in that house. Everything that was left, anyway. I’ve managed to keep going, but how do you prepare against a tornado? How can you keep believing when fate keeps taking everything away?”

  Michael acted instinctively. He plucked Jessie out of her mother’s lap, gave her an extra cookie, and pulled Sunny to her feet. She came like a rag doll into his arms, her body limp and lifeless, and he had to put her arms around his waist. He wrapped her close and rocked her as he’d rocked Jessie down in the basement. He said quiet things, murmuring in her ear: “It’s a lot to think about,” and “Don’t worry just yet,” and “There’s always a way,” and after a minute, Sunny started to cry. Her arms gripped him fiercely, her hands in fists against the small of his back, and he tightened his hold, pressing one hand to the hair at the nape of her neck, the other to the middle of her back. Steadying her.

  She cried for a while, then simply leaned against his chest, her body easing. Michael closed his eyes and let himself feel whatever he felt. The sturdy softness of her, the smallness of her shoulders, the brush of her hair on his check. Breasts. Belly. Thighs. He moved his hand on her back, up and down, just letting the sensation grow, the need to touch another person like this, to hold and be held. She made a slight move, as if she’d pull away, and he tightened his grip the slightest bit. “Now, it’s you comforting me,” he said, and heard the gruffness in his voice.

  But she moved her hands, too, then. Pressed her lush softness against him and rubbed her cheek on his chest. That old familiar ache came on him, the need of a man for a woman, not just to hold, but to give and take, take and give. He moved his hand down her back, over the luscious swell of her hips, and she didn’t protest.

  She felt so good, so good. All that roundness. He traced her buttock, cupped his hand around it, cupped them then in both hands and pulled her closer against his growing erection and she made a soft sound, clutched his sides, and a vision of her without all the damp clothes on ran vividly through his mind. Turning his head into her neck, he opened his mouth and suckled against her, traced the edge of her ear with his tongue, felt her growing soft and taut at once, so he dared to cup then, the other curves his hand ached for, the full weight of a breast that overflowed his palm in a way that made him crazy, made him want to take everything off and see, taste, explore. He dragged his nails against the nub at the center, and she grabbed his hand. “Stop,” she said.

  “What?” Drugged by his own desire, it didn’t sink in immediately. He drew her earlobe into his mouth, put the hand she’d taken away back on her hip, inhaled the scent of her hair.

  She raised her arms and put them against him. “Not like this,” she said, and pushed out of his embrace entirely. “It’s all wrong like this.”

  Michael flushed, looking at Jessie, who stared up at them curiously, munching her cookie quite happily. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think she was old enough to understand necking.”

  “I don’t want to neck,” Sunny said. The bruised look was back in her eyes, and he realized he hadn’t even kissed her, just started groping her like a boy with his first girl at the county fair. “That’s not what I’m about.”

  “I know,” he said, and meant it. “I got carried away, and I apologize.”

  “It’s all right. I just need you to know that’s not who I am.”

  Michael started to say something else, then he realized her breath was still coming hard, and her nipples were at full attention beneath her blouse, and she kept sneaking little glances at his mouth. He grabbed her arm and turned toward the counter. “Let me
show you something here.”

  “What?”

  Standing shoulder to shoulder, he held on to her hand. “Can I kiss you at least?”

  She looked up at him, vulnerability in her blue, blue eyes. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Yeah, but can I?”

  A moment of pause while she searched his face, his eyes. Long enough that he noticed he could see nearly half of one breast down her shirt, and his member leaped like a puppy at the sight. Long enough for him to say, “I want to make love to you, but I’m willing to settle for a kiss.”

  “A kiss isn’t enough for me,” she said, and turned away.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means what it means, that’s all.” Her voice was weary, and her neck bent.

  Michael was flooded with a sense of shame, and he put his hand there, on the curve of her neck, in an offering of comfort. “I’m sorry, Sunny,” he said, and meant it this time. “I guess the drama makes a man want to reaffirm life or something, and I’m very attracted to you.”

  She nodded without looking at him. “What am I going to do?” she asked, and it wasn’t plaintive or whiney. It was the gut-level despair of a woman who’d been hanging on by a thread and had just seen it cut.

  “We’ll go see what we can salvage in the morning, but for now, you can go take a bath and wash all this disaster off you, and I’ll take care of Jessie. You can stay here as long as you need to.”

  “I can’t impose on you that way.”

  “It’s what neighbors do. What if it had been my house? Would you let me sleep on your couch?”

  A faint smile. “Yeah.”

  “All right then.” He bent down and scooped Jessie into his arm.

  “Cookie?” she asked hopefully.

  “No more cookies,” Sunny said. Then to Michael in explanation, “She hasn’t had any supper.”

  “I’ll hustle something up.”

  Sunny raised her head. “Microwave suppers?”

  “How about frozen pizza? It’s the good kind, with the rising crust.”

  She grinned. “Sounds great.”

  He jerked his head toward the door. “Upstairs, first door on the right. Big old claw-footed tub. And if you swear you won’t tell anybody I’ve got ’em, I’ll tell you where the bubbles are.”

  Sunny laughed, and he realized that he’d been waiting for the sound, trying to coax it out of her. A light sound, like a morning wind. “My lips are sealed. You have some sweats or something I can put on afterwards?”

  He winked. “Sure thing, kiddo. C’mon.”

  Chapter 7

  Sunny shut herself in the old-fashioned bathroom with its big deep tub, and turned on the water and let herself have a good cry. A heartfelt, heart-deep release of the terror and the shock and the despair that had flooded through her upon seeing that her house and everything in it had been swept away. She didn’t let herself think about what kind of man knew a woman had to have a cry after such trauma, who would take care of her daughter while she did it, who would fix her a meal. She didn’t think about tomorrow or next week or what the ramifications of this latest disaster meant in terms of the great string of disasters that had been coming at her for two solid years.

  Sinking into the deep, very hot water, into bubbles that smelled of a green forest, she didn’t think. Blips of memory came back, and she let them. She saw herself, frozen in time as the tornado warning came over the radio in English and Spanish, the electronic warning system bleeping, and heard the strange panting sound of her terror as her brain had frantically tried to figure out what to do to keep Jessie safe. She saw the wall of the tornado itself, so immense and unbelievable that she knew she’d never forget it. Most of all, she heard the sound, over and over, the unbelievable roar of the storm.

  But they were safe now, for tonight, with a kindly neighbor.

  Who had touched her.

  She hadn’t fought any of the other memories, but she tried to fight this one. Don’t think about it. Don’t think of the long, ropy strength in his body, the sturdy sense of safety she’d felt as he held her, the gentleness of his hand smoothing her hair, all the soothing words he’d whispered in his lilting, resonant voice.

  Don’t think of the instant it changed and she felt it, all the way to the soles of her feet, the smallest possible shift of his body against hers, which made her suddenly aware of how her breasts were pressed into his ribs, and how that might feel if there were no clothes between them. Don’t think of how it felt when he touched her bottom as if it was something wondrous, not the “bubble butt” her husband had sometimes teased her about having, how hot his mouth had been on her neck and how it had ignited every starved cell in her body, how she had nearly lost her head when he had cupped her breast with such a satisfied, soft groan.

  Don’t think, especially, about the look of his mouth, his eyes, hopeful and teasing and very, very hungry as he asked her for a kiss.

  If he asked again to make love to her, how in the world could she possibly refuse? She wanted him, heaven knew. What woman with half an ounce of good sense could look at all that long, lean rancher body, covered as it was in the sleek, nut-brown skin she could see on his forearms and at the neck of his shirt and not imagine—no, don’t—how it looked beneath that shirt. Who could resist that gorgeous face, those kind and sad eyes?

  But she had to. Because she was spinning fantasies about him, spinning them in places that she didn’t even allow herself to acknowledge, that maybe this man was really about something, that maybe there was one man who could be trusted. That’s all you’d ever need, just one good man.

  A knock sounded at the door. “Pizza’s almost ready.”

  “I’ll be right out!” She stood up, water sluicing from her naked body, and had an acute attack of hunger, thinking of him on the other side of the door. She looked at it, that simple, two-inch slab of wood and felt in her breasts and belly and through her thighs what he would do if she just opened it and invited him in.

  A sudden vision of her mother, a pretty earnest woman, a little bit too dressed-up came to her. The cleavage at the neckline of her blouse, the too-bright smile she pasted on. Sunny had been about thirteen, seeing already that this new man was a loser and didn’t appreciate all that he had, but Debbie had needed the attention so desperately, she’d pretended not to see.

  Never, never, never. She had to get out of this house as soon as possible. That’s all there was to it.

  He’d set the table in the dining room, instead of the kitchen, and in spite of herself, Sunny smiled. There were checkered placemats on the big oak table, and tall glasses of ice and tea and heavy pottery plates. The steaming pizza was in the middle of the table, cut neatly into slices like a pizza parlor would do. “Very nicely done,” she said, and added with a wry grin, “for a man.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. Can Jessie sit here, do you think?” He gestured at a pile of pillows in a chair. “Or do you want to hold her?”

  “That should work fine.” Sunny settled her daughter in the chair, cut a slice of pizza into little finger-sized bits, and set the plate in front of her. Impulsively, Sunny bent and kissed her daughter’s head, smelling the sweetness, and a bolt of thanksgiving went through her—they’d survived. “I love you,” she said.

  Jessie lifted her face and grinned. “Love you.” She waited for the kisses to be rained down on her face, and Sunny did it happily.

  But as she settled down to her own meal, Sunny realized her daughter was just about done in. “She’s got about fifteen minutes to collapse,” she said with a little grin.

  “Collapse?”

  “Oh, yeah. See the way the eyelid on the left is drooping just a little bit? That means bedtime is going to be a collapse of weeping and she’ll last about three seconds once I lie her down.” Sunny chuckled. “Tired?”

  Jessie shook her head vigorously.

  Michael and Sunny exchanged a glance. “You’ll see.”

  They were so hungry they ate i
n relative silence, and Sunny realized suddenly that she was hearing rain on the windows. “Listen to that! It’s just ordinary rain now. What a blessing!”

  “Maybe the rain dances did the trick,” he said.

  “Maybe.”

  Jessie reached for her cup and knocked it over, and that was the trigger. Tears of anger and frustration burst out of her noisily, and Sunny winked at Michael. “Here we go.” She rounded the table, picked up the howling toddler and the diaper bag. “Where do you want me to put her down?”

  “Come on.” He led them upstairs to a spare room, furnished in an old-fashioned, warm way, with a plaid bedspread and a cowboy motif in the lamps.

  Sunny laid the still-crying Jessie down on the bed, stripped off her clothes and diaper and washed her down with baby wipes. “It’s all right, sugar plum, you’re going to be okay, everything is all right,” she murmured, putting on a dry diaper and clean pajamas. Jessie started to slow, her eyes drooping, as Sunny turned her over on her tummy, and started rubbing her back. Michael had ducked out and came back with a rocking chair, which he settled by the dresser. Sunny raised a finger to her lips, singing Jessie’s favorite lullaby, an old camp church song, and Michael nodded.

  In minutes, the baby was asleep, and Sunny piled pillows around the edges of the bed to keep her from falling off, then turned on a lamp in case she awakened suddenly, and tiptoed out. “Whew,” she said, laughing as they sat back down to the pizza.

  “Quite a storm,” he agreed, his eyes crinkling up. “I think I’ve had enough. Want some coffee?”

  “I would love some.” She picked up her dishes.

  He pushed her back down. “We’re not doing dishes. Just sit.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He grinned and ducked into the kitchen, bringing two big mugs of steaming coffee. Without ceremony, he shoved the pizza and dishes to one side, and settled the cups. “So, tell me your story, Sunny-girl,” he said, kicking his stocking feet out in front of him. “Grow up in Denver?”