In Your Arms (Montana Romance)

by Farmer, Merry

  “Christian, I need you to drive me out to Sturdy Oak’s place,” she interrupted the tableaux. “The children were missing from rehearsal again today, and I—”

  She stopped at the sight of the man in the cell. He was Indian, no doubt, with brown skin the same shade as hers. He sat rigidly with his back against the wall, legs crossed. He wore a simple white man’s suit, though his hair was long and a piece was braided and tied with a strip of leather. So this was the man that had stirred Cold Springs to a frenzy.

  The man’s eyes only moved to look at her. A hint of shock rippled through his stoic expression. Then, as if freed from a spell, he loosened his limbs and stood. Christian, Kent, and Wilkins all flinched as though he had flown into a fit.

  “I will speak now,” he said.

  The three men continued to stare. When none of them made a move or a peep, Lily walked to the edge of the cell.

  “Who are you?” Lily asked. The possibility of getting to the bottom of the mystery that had wrapped up so many people for so long was too tempting for her to stay quiet.

  “I am Seeks For Her,” he said.

  An inexplicable chill raced down Lily’s spine. She met the man’s eyes and held them. There was something there that felt familiar and yet worlds away. A fire burned in the man’s expression, as though he were full of joy in spite of being in a jail cell. He made her want to smile. The only other man who had drawn her in so quickly was Christian, but this was entirely different.

  She blinked, swallowed.

  “Did you attempt to rob the pharmacy last Saturday night, Seeks For Her?” she asked.

  “I did not,” he said.

  Relief flooded Lily. She saw it reflected in Christian as he shifted his weight and dropped his arms.

  “Did you rob the home of Mr. Samuel Kuhn two weeks ago?” she asked on.

  “I did not.”

  “Did you steal from the train station? The Emporium?”

  “No, I did not,” Seeks For Her answered without pause.

  Lily tore her eyes away from him, turning to Kent and Wilkins.

  “There you have it,” she said. “He has declared his innocence. You have locked up an innocent man.”

  “She’s right,” Christian added, somewhat hesitantly. “It’s what I’ve been saying all along. You have no evidence against him.”

  “Saying he’s innocent doesn’t mean anything.” Wilkins narrowed his eyes. He stood and strolled to the jail cell. “I’m not letting a criminal walk free because he says so.”

  “You’re not?” Christian stepped past Lily to face Wilkins. “You’re not the sheriff here. You don’t have the right to incarcerate anyone.”

  “And you’re not the sheriff either,” Wilkins countered. “You don’t have the right to free anyone just because they lie and say they’re innocent.”

  “This man’s biggest crime was being in the wrong place at the right time.”

  “He’s an Indian.”

  “And he has a right to go free.”

  “Says who? The sheriff?”

  Both men turned to look at Kent. Kent gaped as though they were threatening to throw in him jail for life.

  Lily huffed in impatience, temper hanging on by a thread. “I am not asking that Seeks For Her be set free, even though I don’t believe for a moment that he is the thief,” she said and glanced toward him. In spite of the argument, he stared at her with such joy that her stomach quivered. “I just want this matter settled and the furor that has been created because of it put to rest.”

  “Me too!” Christian added with more force than was necessary, still staring Wilkins down. “The man at least has a right to a speedy trial.”

  “Any trial over which you preside would be a gross miscarriage of justice,” Wilkins fired back.

  “Then call in a judge from Billings.”

  “I will!”

  “You look so much like our mother.” Seeks For Her spoke as though only he and Lily were in the room.

  The world stopped.

  Unable to breathe, Lily turned to face him.

  “What did you say?” she asked, hoarse and shaking.

  “You are the image of our mother.” He stepped forward, grabbing the bars and leaning towards her. “I have followed rumors and whispers before to no end, but seeing you, I am certain. You are Singing Bird.”

  Lily’s legs gave out. Strong arms closed around her, holding her up, but she didn’t realize until she was on her feet again that she had collapsed or that Christian had caught her.

  “What are you saying?” Christian asked. His tone was firm and his arms tight around Lily.

  “You are Singing Bird,” Seeks For Her repeated, looking only at Lily. “Daughter of Golden Deer, who was taken from her family as a child.”

  “I…I am?” Lily struggled to balance herself. She pushed out of Christian’s grasp but continued to hold his arm. “How do you know?”

  “It is written in your face,” Seeks For Her said, studying her. “Your voice sounds like hers too. You were raised at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, were you not?”

  “I was,” she answered. Her breath continued to come in fitful gasps. For more than twenty-five years of her life she had thought she was alone, abandoned. Twenty-five years without a home and without a family, and now the words of one man shattered all that.

  “Lots of children were raised at the Carlisle school, as I understand it,” Christian said. His face was serious and he slipped an arm around Lily’s waist as though she would need it.

  “Yes, they were,” Seeks For Her said as if noticing Christian for the first time. He glanced between Christian and Lily, then said, “There were missionaries that came to our village when we were young. They spoke of a school where children would be educated and where they would learn the ways of civilized people. Some parents gladly gave their children into these missionaries’ care. Others did not. Some children were taken without warning, before their families could stop it.”

  He finished by meeting Lily’s eyes with such intensity that she knew she had been one of those children.

  “I don’t remember,” she said. “I have often thought that I should remember, that it is important to remember. All I remember is arriving at the school and thinking everything was so big, so frightening.”

  “I know,” Seeks For Her said, his hands flexing over the bars of the jail. “They came back for me a year later.”

  Lily’s heart leapt to her throat. “They did? Why did we never meet in all those years at the school?”

  He shook his head. “I was taken to a different school, one in Morris, Minnesota. I searched throughout the school for you every day until I was punished. They gave me a new name, Thomas Smith, but the other children called me Seeks For Her because I never stopped looking.”

  Lily’s throat squeezed tight. Tears stung at her eyes as years’ worth of questions melted away. She stepped out of Christian’s arms and flew to the bars of the cell. At the last moment, she resisted the urge to close her hands around those of the man staring back at her with eyes that were so familiar it ached.

  “You asked me what I was doing at the pharmacy the night it was robbed,” Seeks For Her said to Christian. “I was looking for my sister.”

  “You found me,” she choked.

  Seeks For Her smiled, his own tears bright in his eyes.

  “I really hate to be the fly in this ointment,” Christian spoke slowly, “but I’m going to have to verify your story somehow.”

  With a flare of anger, Lily turned to face him. “You think he’s lying?”

  “No,” Christian answered, hands held out as though he was facing down a rabid animal. “The two of you look alike.”

  “You do,” Kent added.

  Lily blinked at him. She had hardly heard the man say more than a peep in all the time she’d known him.

  “I beg your pardon,” Christian said to Seeks For Her. “Lily might be your sister, but she’s my sweetheart, and I have to think of
her first.”

  Lily’s first impulse to rage at Christian was overridden by a confusing twist of flattery at his protectiveness. She glanced between him and the man who claimed to be her brother.

  Seeks For Her watched Christian with thoughtful eyes. “You must do what you must,” he said.

  The two men admired each other. Lily could tell by looking at them. A strange sort of male respect hung in the air between them, like allies meeting on a battlefield.

  “You said your name was Thomas Smith?” Christian asked.

  Seeks For Her nodded. “Dr. Thomas Smith of Denver, Colorado.”

  Again, all the air seemed to vanish from the room.

  “You have got to be joking.” Wilkins snorted. “You? A doctor?”

  “I earned my medical degree in 1894 from the Philadelphia College of Medicine. I have been practicing in Denver under Dr. Elijah Hammer for the past two years. You may contact him or the school or the Morris Indian Industrial School in Minnesota for verification.” He gave the information to Christian without acknowledging Wilkins at all, a gesture that did not go unnoticed by Christian.

  A faint grin tweaked the corner of Christian’s mouth. “I’ll run over to the courthouse to use our telephone right away,” he said. “And then I’ll wire for the circuit judge in Billings to come out and hear the case against you so there’s no question of conflict of interest.” He spoke the last words to Wilkins with a smirk. “We’ll get you out of here.”

  “Thank you.”

  “One other question. Do you go by Thomas or Seeks For Her?”

  “I go by Thomas to all but those closest to me,” he said. “You may call me Thomas, for now.” To Lily he said, “You may call me whatever you want.”

  “Our mother,” Lily said, leaning closer to the bars. “Is she…is she well?”

  Her heart stood still as Seeks For Her, Thomas, shook his head. “I heard nothing from them while I was at school,” he said.

  “Neither did I. The paperwork I came with was lost and they didn’t know who I was or where I came from. I was too young to remember.”

  A twist of deep sadness filled Seeks For Her’s eyes. “I was not. I remembered everything. The day I graduated from the school, I returned home.”

  He paused, lowering his head. Lily’s heart ached with what she knew he would say next.

  “Our family had been moved south, to Oklahoma and the lands of the Southern Cheyenne. But the land there was too hot and they did not adapt well. Our mother and her surviving kin died before others of the Northern Cheyenne could return to their homeland.”

  “We’re Northern Cheyenne then?” Lily asked, relief flowing through her like a rainstorm.

  Seeks For Her nodded. “You didn’t know.”

  It wasn’t a question. He nodded, sad for her loss, then reached out through the bars of his cell to touch Lily’s hand. She let him take it, squeezed his hand. It was the first time since before her memory that she had touched a family member.

  “Why don’t we leave these two alone to talk,” Christian said, his voice rough. “I’ve got some telephone calls to make.”

  He started for the door, Kent following meekly behind.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Wilkins said. His eyes were narrowed and he rubbed his hand over his chin as he stared at Seeks For Her. “If you want to leave your sweet savage alone with a lying Indian, that’s your business.”

  Seeks For Her’s hand tightened around Lily’s.

  Christian turned back and marched to stand toe-to-toe with Wilkins.

  “Not one person here asked for you to go meddling in the affairs of this town,” he said. “You may have appointed yourself lord over everything, but that’s the true lie.”

  “Might I remind you, I was asked to come here by a member of the town council,” Wilkins said, puffing his chest out and clenching his fists.

  “Yeah? The same town council that I’ve sat on for five years? We’ll just see what they have to say about this. Lily?” He turned back to her, concern beating under his anger. “You okay staying here with this idiot?”

  Lily glanced from Christian to Wilkins to Seeks For Her. When her eyes met Seeks For Her’s, he reached his other hand through the bars to clasp both hands around hers.

  “I think so,” she said, head spinning. “I have so many questions. I don’t know where to start.”

  “I…I could stay here,” Kent offered.

  Both Christian and Lily raised their brows in surprise. It had to have been the first bold thing the man had ever done in his life. Christian still looked as though he was taking a risk by trusting the man.

  “Keep an eye on him,” he finally said to Kent. He turned to Lily, eyes filling with a tenderness that tipped her already fragile state over the edge. “I’ll find the truth for you. And then we’ll see about getting him free.”

  He nodded to Seeks For Her, who returned the nod. With one final tip of his hat to Lily, Christian threw open the door and rushed out to discover her truth.

  Lily drew in a breath and let it out with all of the anxiety and uncertainty she’d carried for years. Regardless of Wilkins and Kent watching her, she turned to the man who she was certain was her brother, brimming with questions. She prayed there would be time to ask them all.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dr. Thomas “Seeks For Her” Smith was telling the truth.

  Christian hung the earpiece back on his telephone, set the contraption on his desk, and leaned back in his chair. He blew out a long breath. He’d spent the afternoon and the better part of the evening on the telephone, harassing operators from Denver to Minnesota to Philadelphia, trying to be connected to the people he needed. It wasn’t that he doubted the man who called himself Lily’s brother. Anyone who looked at them together could see the resemblance. It was just that he had to be sure.

  He pushed back from his desk and stood, swiping his hat from the desktop and fitting it on his head. Lily was his. He didn’t see Thomas as a threat to that, not exactly, but he had a duty to protect her from disappointment as well as danger. Misplaced affection could hurt her as much as bullets, as much as rumors. He knew that too well.

  He crossed to the stand by the door to fetch his coat and continued on through the courthouse into the frosty evening. For all his efforts, it was the last conversation, the one with Dr. Hammer in Denver, that had sold him on Thomas’s identity. Dr. Hammer had known everything about Thomas’s background and search, and he had been delighted to know that Thomas had found what he’d been looking for all these years. He’d also been distressed that Thomas was in jail for a crime he hadn’t committed.

  A light was on in the apartment above Michael and Charlie’s shop across the street from the courthouse. Rather than circling around the back of the courthouse to go home, Christian changed direction and headed for the shop. Lily would want to know what he had discovered. If he was honest with himself, he just wanted to be with her.

  It was after dark, a school night, and the rumors about the two of them hadn’t settled down a peep, but he didn’t care. He had every right to tell the woman he loved that she was not without family anymore.

  He stepped up onto the porch in front of the store, checking up and down lamp-lit Main Street. Few people were out and none of them were watching him. He took the key Michael had slipped him on the sly out of his pocket. It didn’t matter what Michael said, he owed his friend so much at this point that they would never be even again.

  He let himself into the store without turning on the electric lights and locked the door again behind him, checking to be certain he hadn’t been seen. When he was convinced he’d gotten lucky, he strode through the store to the back room.

  “Lily!” he called up the stairs to the apartment before starting up. “Are you home?”

  “Christian?” She stepped out of the kitchen as he reached the top of the stairs. “What are you doing here?”

  He couldn’t help it. As soon as she was within arm’s reach he scooped her
up and hugged her. The tension that had hung over him for days melted with the heat of her body against his, the scent of lavender and her around him.

  She hugged him in return, and for a moment the two of them stood where they were in each other’s arms, wrapped in silence.

  At length she leaned back and looked up at him.

  “Is he lying?” she asked, voice trembling.

  Christian shook his head, breaking into a smile. “No. He’s telling the truth. I spent all day on that blasted telephone until my ear bled, badgering them on a Sunday. Everyone I talked to confirmed his story.”

  “Oh, Christian!” She hugged him tighter, resting her forehead against his neck and bursting into sobs. “I wanted him to be telling the truth so desperately.”

  “I know, sweetheart,” he said, rubbing her back. Lily was in tears, but he had never felt better about the world than he did right then. “It gets better,” he said.

  She sniffed and looked up at him, hope glittering in her eyes. His father better have sent that ring by the fastest trains money could buy. He needed this woman in his arms on a permanent basis as soon as possible.

  “Dr. Hammer—the one in Denver that Thomas is practicing with—was so distraught to hear that he’s in jail for a crime he didn’t commit that he’s hopping on the next train to come up here and testify that Thomas was with him a hundred miles away at the time of all but the last robbery.”

  Lily gasped, her tears flowing anew. “That’s wonderful!”

  He kissed her. Nothing seemed more natural in all the world. Her lips were warm and her skin damp with tears as his mouth met hers. Everything about it was perfect. She kissed him back, circling her arms around his neck and returning his affection with passion on a whole other level. The impulse to ravish her rolled to the surface as his body and heart responded to her. Logic screamed that he couldn’t compromise her again, that they were already walking a dangerous road, that too much was at stake.