Wild Desire

by Cassie Edwards

  That only shine the brighter,

  After weeping tears of dew.

  —R. W. RAYMOND

  The entrance into the Navaho village was one of celebration. Stephanie rode at Runner’s side as Sage and Thunder Hawk rode ahead of them, proud, free, and jubilantly accepting the chants of welcome.

  Stephanie saw that obviously the word had spread while she had been gone about Thunder Hawk’s incarceration. But she wondered just how many of the People knew exactly why, and who was responsible? Thus far, no one had singled her out with a frown. She wasn’t sure if this was because they didn’t know about Adam’s guilt, or if they knew that she, Adam’s stepsister, had gone against him, on behalf of Thunder Hawk.

  Stephanie was taken up with the joy that shone on everyone’s face; it was quite contagious. Inside her heart she felt such peace, such wonderful, precious peace, even though she had only a short while ago bade a farewell to a part of her past that had at one time been as special to her as her acceptance into Navaho life was to her now.

  She smiled as Sky Dancer came running toward Thunder Hawk. Something tugged at her heart as she watched Thunder Hawk take Sky Dancer into his arms and twirl in a circle with her as she laughed gleefully.

  Stephanie wiped tears of joy from her eyes and gave Leonida a warm smile as the older woman stepped away from the throngs of people and met Sage as he approached on his horse. After Sage swung himself down from the saddle, he grabbed Leonida into his arms and gave her a fierce hug.

  “I have heard it said that if one waits patiently enough, things will fall into place where they belong,” Runner said, drawing a tight rein as Stephanie drew her horse to a halt.

  He dismounted and went to Stephanie and held his arms up to her. “Because of you, things are being restored to proper balance one by one,” he said. “Soon you will join with my people for a ‘Chant Way Ceremony, ’ and then the balance of my people’s lives will be fully restored.”

  Stephanie slipped easily from the horse and into Runner’s arms. His hands at her waist, he drew her close to him, their eyes locked. “Darling, I have never heard of a ‘Chant Way Ceremony,’” she murmured.

  “We Navaho believe in always maintaining hozho, or harmony, within our world,” Runner explained, his eyes dancing. “When one of us upsets the balance between good and evil, misfortune will result, and it may affect our people as a whole.”

  He slipped an arm around her waist and drew her to his side as they began gently pushing their way through the crowd. “To restore disrupted order in our village, we turn to our ceremony called ‘Chant Ways,’” he said. “Each ‘way’ is a series of prayers and songs telling tales of my people’s history. Some of them can take as long as nine days to complete, so the singers who perform them rarely know more than one or two ‘ways.’”

  “That sounds so interesting,” Stephanie said, then stretched her neck to see over the crowd when she caught sight of Pure Blossom standing alone in the doorway of her hogan.

  Stephanie’s insides tightened. She had to wonder how much Pure Blossom knew about what had happened, and whether or not she knew about Adam’s participation in the crime that had been committed.

  She recoiled when she recalled what Adam had said about Pure Blossom at the jail, how tauntingly and mockingly he had told Runner that he had never loved the sweet Navaho maiden.

  “Runner, shouldn’t someone in the family tell Pure Blossom the details of what happened today, before someone else does who would not treat her as delicately about it?” Stephanie asked. “And how will she react? I am concerned for her feelings, yet she must be told.” She gave Runner a sideways glance. “Don’t you think so, darling?”

  Adam’s words were flowing through Runner’s mind like a rushing river, over and over again, flooding his thoughts. His heart pounded at the sight of his sister standing so forlorn and alone at the door of her hogan. She had certainly heard enough to cause her to have such sadness in her eyes. This made Runner’s hate for Adam even worse. Yet, for now, he had to cast hate aside. Loving his sister, and protecting her, was of prime importance.

  “We will go together and explain to Pure Blossom,” Runner said, changing Stephanie’s direction as he guided her with his arm around her waist.

  When they reached her, Pure Blossom ducked her head and disappeared into her hogan. Stephanie and Runner exchanged troubled glances, then followed after her.

  Stephanie looked around her, at the grand sight of the many beautiful blankets lining the walls of the hogan, decorated with exquisite designs drawn from nature and Navaho history. Pure Blossom sat at her loom, as she skillfully worked her yarn into another beautiful, multicolored design.

  “Pure Blossom,” Runner said, stepping away from Stephanie. He knelt down onto one knee beside the fireplace, close to his sister. “I understand why you aren’t joining the others to celebrate. You feel as though you have lost, instead of having won anything.”

  He placed a hand to Pure Blossom’s arm, stopping her weaving, so that she would look over at him. “Pure Blossom, Adam is not worth grieving over,” he said gently. “He is a worthless, scheming, lying cheat. You will find another man more worthy of your love. In time, sweet sister, you will see. Another man will steal your heart away. But do not wait until then to show me your perfect smile. Give me one now, Pure Blossom, so that I can, in turn, have cause to smile.”

  “You say that my smile is perfect,” Pure Blossom finally said, her voice breaking. She held up her free hand so that Runner could see how her fingers were beginning to twist and gnarl. “Do you see anything perfect about my hand?” She turned her back to Runner and held her hair up so that he could see the hump on her back. “Do you see a perfect back?”

  She turned tearful eyes back to Runner. “No one will want me again,” she sobbed. “Even Adam did not want me. He only pretended.”

  Runner’s gaze became steely with anger. “Why do you say that?” he said, his voice low. He could not understand how his sister would know Adam’s true feelings. Only a few had heard Adam’s confession at the trading post. He knew that his father, Thunder Hawk, and Stephanie could not yet have told her.

  That had to mean only one thing, and if that were true, Runner was not sure if he could restrain himself from going to kill Adam right away and save the white man’s courts the trouble.

  Pure Blossom’s eyes filled with tears. She lowered her eyes and began crying so hard her body was wracked by the tears. “Adam told me how ugly I was,” she cried. “How could he be so cruel?”

  Stephanie bit her lower lip, stung speechless by the extent of her stepbrother’s cruelty toward Pure Blossom. And she was beginning to feel guilty for so much of this. Even though she was not a direct cause of the hurt that Pure Blossom was feeling, the fact that she had accompanied Adam to the Arizona Territory seemed cause enough. If she had discouraged Adam from coming, surely he wouldn’t have, and all of these heartaches would have been spared.

  “He told you . . . ?” Runner said, his throat suddenly dry. “He not only destroyed you by his deceit, he tried to destroy all of the Navaho by paying for a train to be blown up so that he could point an accusing finger at us.”

  “How could I have loved such a man?” Pure Blossom sobbed.

  “Pure Blossom, you must forget Adam,” Runner said softly. “He is not worth the tears shed over him.”

  “These tears are not for myself,” Pure Blossom said, clutching at herself. “It is for the child that I carry within my womb. It is Adam’s child.”

  Runner and Stephanie exchanged quick glances, then Runner gently took Pure Blossom’s hand from her stomach. He caressed it. “A child,” he said softly. “It is your child, Pure Blossom. It will be loved. The child need never know the true worth of its father. It shall be blessed with knowing you, its mother. Why would a child want anything more when it has you?”

  “I need time alone,” Pure Blossom said, rushing to her feet. “Do not follow me, big brother. This is a time for mother a
nd child to be alone with the Great Unseen Power.”

  It took all of Runner’s willpower not to go after Pure Blossom. When he heard her leave on a horse he closed his eyes and said a soft, silent prayer for her well-being, then opened his eyes and found Stephanie standing directly before him.

  “Runner, do you think you should go after her?”

  “E-do-tano, no. She is going to seek solace with the Great Spirit and she must do this alone.”

  He slipped an arm around her waist and led her from Pure Blossom’s hogan, through the crowd, and then into his own dwelling. A fire cast its soft flickering light around the room. Food was simmering in a large pot over the flames.

  Runner took Stephanie’s hands and drew her against him. He gazed into her eyes. “I did not think we would ever be alone again,” he said, bending to softly kiss her lips. “But here we are. Can you think of something we might do to celebrate?”

  “Darling, what would you suggest?”

  “I am hungry.”

  She cast the food a quick glance.

  “Shall I feed you?” she said, looking teasingly up at him.

  “Yes,” he said huskily, his fingers eager on the buttons of her blouse.

  She smiled seductively up at him as he slipped the blouse off. “Darling, am I to feed you with my clothes off?” she said, her lips parting in a slight gasp as he bent over and flicked his tongue over one of her nipples.

  “You are feeding a different sort of hunger than that for food,” Runner said, his hands now at the waist of her skirt, lowering it past her hips.

  “Will you also feed my hunger?” she asked in a soft purring voice as he continued disrobing her, finishing by tossing her boots aside.

  “You will soon see,” Runner said. He grabbed her up into his arms and carried her to the bed.

  As she stretched out on her back on the soft blankets, she watched with a thudding heartbeat as he quickly disrobed himself. She felt a twinge of guilt again for this happiness that she was sharing with the man of her desire, when Pure Blossom had no one.

  And the child—what of the child? Couldn’t it be a blessing in disguise? The child might be the only one whom Pure Blossom would have to share her life with.

  Stephanie shook her thoughts aside and reveled in how it felt to have Runner’s body against hers again as he came to her and lay over her, drawing her into the warmth of his body. He nudged her legs apart with one knee so that she could feel the heat of his manhood probing where she throbbed with sexual need of him.

  He kissed her, his mouth hot, demanding, and wonderful. She was overwhelmed with a wild desire for him and twined her arms around his neck to draw him even more tightly against her. She pressed her breasts up into his chest, savoring the feel of his muscular body.

  When he thrust himself into her, she threw her legs around him and locked them at her ankles. She thrust her pelvis toward him and rode him, movement for movement. Surges of ecstasy were welling within her, spreading, drenching her with warmth.

  When he moved his lips down and swept his tongue around her breasts, she caught her breath, not daring to breathe for fear of disturbing the soft melting energy that was swimming through her.

  When their eyes met, they locked in an unspoken understanding, promising ecstasy, the air heavy with the inevitability of pleasure.

  “It’s been too long,” Stephanie murmured, twining her fingers through his thick, dark hair.

  She drew his mouth to her lips. Their tongues touched, and then he kissed her again, his hands seeking her breasts. Her breasts were warm beneath his fingers, his thumbs circled her rose-tipped nipples, his mouth seared into hers with intensity, leaving her breathless.

  Runner felt the nerves in his body tensing, a tremor beginning from deep within him as one kiss blended into another. He locked his arms around her and held her in a torrid embrace, fiercely anchoring her as his eager mouth tasted her sweetness.

  The blaze of urgency set fire to his insides, leaping higher, a wild, exuberant passion spinning through his veins. His hands cupped the rounded flesh of her bottom and held her up to him as he filled her innermost depths with his throbbing hardness.

  He groaned against her lips as he felt himself at the edge of that brink that would take him into total bliss.

  He paused, laid his cheek against one of her breasts and took a deep breath, then plunged one last time deeply into her. He held her tightly as their bodies shook and quaked, their pleasure spilling over into each other, as though one being, one soul, one heartbeat.

  Stephanie clung to him. She licked his neck, then kissed it. “I want to share this with you every day of my life,” she whispered.

  When he looked down at her, he framed her face between his hands. “You know what you are saying?” he said thickly. “You know what you are giving up?”

  “My darling Runner, I’m gaining everything that I want in life when I marry you,” she murmured, smiling softly up at him. “Don’t you know? You, you alone, are my only passion now.”

  “And what of your passion for photography?” he asked, searching her eyes for the truth.

  “Sometimes one must make choices,” Stephanie said, touching his cheek gently. “I have made mine.”

  “What of your camera and equipment?”

  “They will belong to someone else.”

  “You can give them up so easily?”

  “Are they my reason for living?”

  “I would hope not.”

  “You are, Runner. I willingly give up my past life for you.”

  “You seem too independent to do that.”

  “Yes, I am an independent person,” Stephanie said, as he rolled away from her to lie beside her.

  “And in my independent logic I have made a choice,” she said matter-of-factly. “It is to marry you and be your wife. That will be my career by choice. Not because you gave me an ultimatum.”

  “I believe I am smarter than to ever give you ultimatums,” he said, chuckling as he ran a hand over her hip.

  “I’m never going to give you cause to even want to,” Stephanie said, rolling against him. She threw a leg over him and drew him against her. “I’m going to make you an absolutely perfect wife.”

  “There are only two things missing in my happiness at this moment,” Runner said, holding her close.

  “Pure Blossom,” Stephanie said sullenly. “Pure Blossom’s tragic affair with Adam.” She paused and swallowed hard. “And Little Jimmy.”

  “Yes, Pure Blossom,” Runner said, gazing hauntedly into the fire. “And . . . Jimmy. . . .”

  Pure Blossom rode to the brink of a cliff which plunged into a chasm cut by an ancient stream. Its boulder-strewn bed held only a narrow trickle of water, more than one hundred feet below. She drew a tight rein, dismounted, and draped her horse’s reins over a low limb of a cottonwood tree and went and sat down beside a stream.

  Leaning over, she stared at her reflection in the water, then angrily and without control, she began pummeling her fists into the water. She had wanted to erase all signs of herself, instead she succeeded mainly in making herself look more distorted than before as the ripples played and moved on her reflection.

  “I hate you!” she cried at her reflection. “Why were you ever born?”

  A rattling sound that she was familiar with made her grow cold with a sudden fear. When she turned to see where the rattlesnake might be, she screamed; the rattler struck at her and sank its venom into one of her ankles.

  “E-do-tano, no!” she shouted, as the rattlesnake scurried away from her in the dust. “I truly didn’t mean it. I don’t want to die!”

  She grasped onto her throbbing ankle. A wave of weakness ran through her as she started to collapse onto the ground.

  She closed her eyes, then blinked them open momentarily when through her veiled tears and the haziness of her blurred vision she saw a hand reaching toward her.

  Caught between strong arms she smiled, for she recognized the one who had come to he
r rescue. She felt blessed that the color of his skin was the same as hers. Somehow, after having become enamored with Adam, she had managed to forget this handsome Navaho.

  “Gray Moon?” she whispered, then floated away into a tunnel of darkness.

  Chapter 32

  Love took you by the hand

  At eve, and bade you stand

  Where I should pass.

  —JOHN NICHOLS

  Stephanie walked slowly toward her horse, finding it hard to leave Runner’s village. She feared that if she entered that other world she had known before him, something might keep her there. Perhaps she might even be tempted to go back on her word and send the photographs back to Wichita.

  She had to prove to herself that she was strong enough to withstand such temptations. She knew deep inside her heart that her love for Runner was much stronger than her need to continue dabbling in photography.

  Runner stepped up beside her and lifted her into her saddle. “I will go with you and stay with you until you set things right in your life before returning,” he said as he gazed up at her with his midnight dark eyes. “As you know, word has spread about Damon Stout fleeing the law and going into hiding. It would be dangerous for you to be alone while he is free to wreak havoc on our lives.”

  “I know that you feel that way, but I’ll be all right,” she said, taking her reins into her hands. “You have responsibilities here. There’s Pure Blossom; she hasn’t returned. Don’t you think that you should go and look for her to see if she is all right?” She rested her hand on her holstered derringer. “She is far more vulnerable than I.”

  Runner turned and gazed into the distance, past his village. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “She has been gone for too long now,” he said, his voice drawn. Then he swung himself into his saddle and grabbed up his reins. “I will go and look for her. You will go with me. After we find her and escort her safely back to her hogan, I will then ride with you to your train.” He smiled over at her. “My woman, there is no need in arguing. This man who loves you will not let you out of his sight until Damon Stout is found and placed behind bars.”