Frontier Bride (Harlequin Historical)

by Ana Seymour

  “I’m not leaving you—”

  This time his interruption was more effective. He pulled her toward him and gave her a hard, short kiss that stopped the words dead in her mouth. “Just go. Do what I tell you. I should be following along behind you any minute.”

  He gave her a little push and she started to walk. Over her shoulder she saw that the Indians were watching her. Two of them made a move to go after her, but Ethan stepped in front of them and started speaking. She made her way quickly to the edge of the trees. Ethan and Skabewis were face-to-face, talking heatedly.

  Once she was within the shelter of the woods, she stopped. She couldn’t decide if she should wait there for Ethan or go on as he had directed. The sun was already low in the sky. Soon it would be dark. This time the cathedral of trees seemed more sinister than peaceful.

  If she had a gun, she would stay and try her new skill to help Ethan. But she had no weapon. The best thing would probably be for her to get to the boats as soon as possible and come back for Ethan with the other men. She set out, following what she hoped was the right trail, but she stopped frequently, miserable with worry and indecision. Perhaps she should go back to Ethan. There may be a way she could help after all. If all else failed, she could agree to stay with the Indians until Ethan could come for her with a rescue party. The very thought made her shudder. But what if by the time she came back to the little meadow with reinforcements, Ethan was dead? How would she feel?

  Her steps grew slower and slower. Finally she turned around and started retracing her steps back to Ethan and the Indians. She couldn’t leave him. If she couldn’t help him, at least she would be by his side for whatever happened.

  The sun was no longer in sight above the trees. The dim twilight left the forest floor completely dark. She picked her way, trying to put all her focus on the trail, as she had seen Ethan do earlier that day. Shouldn’t she be back at the meadow by now? Her heart started beating faster as she realized how easy it would be to become lost. Perhaps she was lost already. She looked around her in sudden confusion. Was it over those trees that the sun had sunk just minutes ago? Where was the lighter sky? Through the dark trees, it all looked the same.

  “You’re going the wrong way,” a voice said behind her.

  She whirled around, relief washing over her. “Ethan!”

  Without thinking, she flung her arms around his neck. He laughed and stumbled a little, but returned the embrace, drawing her close against him. “Where did you think you were heading?” he asked.

  “I was coming back to help you,” she said. She joined in his laughter, but inside she felt weepy.

  Ethan wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his chin against her hair. She could feel him shaking his head. “My brave, foolish Hannah. If you had reappeared I might never have been able to settle this thing.”

  Becoming aware all at once of the closeness of their bodies, she pulled back. “How did you settle it?”

  He shrugged. “I just kept talking. Wore them down, I guess.”

  She took a good look at him. Something was missing. “Where’s your pack?”

  “I decided to leave that with the Indians.”

  That wasn’t all. “Ethan, your rifle!”

  “I made them a present of that, too.”

  “Not your rifle?” she cried in dismay.

  He grinned at her in the gathering dusk. “I guess you’re worth the price, Mistress Forrester.”

  “Oh, no.” Tears stung her eyes.

  He seized her back up in his arms. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve another gun back at the boat.”

  “But not the Sure Shot.”

  “Not the Sure Shot,” he agreed.

  She looked up into his face. He hadn’t shaved since they left Fort Pitt, and what had been stubble was turning into a dark beard that emphasized the strong features of his face. His hair hung in glossy waves to his shoulders. He looked like every picture she had had of a rugged frontiersman, yet his eyes on her were tender. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  A single tear escaped down her cheek. Unexpectedly Ethan bent and kissed the wet trail. “Don’t cry, sweetheart,” he answered, his voice thick. “The only thing that’s important is that you’re all right. When I saw that randy young brave touching you, I could hardly stop myself from strangling him.”

  “You looked calm enough.”

  He gave a shaky laugh. “I was anything but calm. If they had decided to make trouble, we would have been lost. Even with the rifle, I could only have gotten a couple of them, maybe another one or two with my knife. That would have left five to take their revenge on you.”

  Hannah swallowed a wave of sickness and glanced down at his belt where Ethan’s wicked-looking hunting knife usually hung. “They took that, too,” he said with a rueful smile.

  She looked down the trail in the direction of the meadow. “They won’t come back for us now?”

  “No. They headed out the same time I did, traveling west.”

  “They were nice to the children,” Hannah said, trying to get out of her mind a picture of the pretty little meadow filled with bodies—the Indians’ and Ethan’s. She preferred to think about the way they had cared for Jacob and Bridgett and the companionship and laughter they had shared earlier that afternoon.

  “Yes. The Potawatomi don’t make war on children. But if we hadn’t come, they would have taken them back to their own tribe.”

  “And we may never have found them.”

  The dark look in his eyes was answer enough. “It’s important to make everyone realize that the frontier is still a very dangerous place.”

  “I think this will be a good lesson for us all, especially Jacob,” Hannah said.

  “The boy has a little too much curiosity for his own safety, but I have a hard time faulting him for it.”

  Hannah smiled. “I would suspect that young Ethan Reed was a curious little scamp himself.”

  “Still is,” he agreed with a grin.

  For a moment they just smiled at each other, sharing the knowledge that they had faced a perilous situation and come out of it safely. Then the expression in Ethan’s eyes changed subtly. Hannah had seen that look before, and as it had before, it produced an odd, yearning feeling through her middle. She took a step backward and said, “Ah…I suppose we should start back.”

  Ethan nodded, still watching her. “We can start, but I don’t know how far we’ll get.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have no supplies, no flint, no way to make a torch. There’s not enough of a trail to see our way once it gets completely dark.”

  The unsettling inside returned, mixed with a touch of fear. “You mean we’ll be out here all night?”

  Finally he took his eyes from her face and looked upward. “I can’t see enough of the sky through the trees to even tell a direction. We don’t want to risk getting ourselves lost.”

  “No, of course not. I just hope they aren’t too worried about us.” But her thoughts were not really on the people back in the boat. They were on the long hours ahead, alone with Ethan.

  “We’ll get as far as we can,” he said, sounding unconcerned at the prospect of a night by themselves in the middle of the forest.

  They set out, but in only a few minutes Ethan straightened up from studying the ground and shook his head. “It’s no use. I’m going to mark this spot for us to start from tomorrow. Then we’d better look around for the most comfortable place to sleep.”

  Just a few yards away they found a small clearing where the ground sloped upward to a half circle of pine trees. The soft ground was covered with pine needles. “This will do,” Ethan said, taking her hand.

  “Right here in the open?”

  “We’re not likely to find an inn in these parts, sweetheart.”

  It was the second time he had used the endearment. The first she had attributed to the emotion of the moment when they had found each other after their scare. But this time his use of the word seeme
d deliberate. And Hannah knew that it was a mistake for her to feel such pleasure in hearing it.

  She made no acknowledgment of the term. “Not an inn, but a…I don’t know…cave or something. Where does one sleep in the wilderness?”

  “You’re looking at it,” he answered with a sweep of his hand. “The forest floor for a mattress, the sky overhead for a roof, and the wind in the pines to sing you to sleep.”

  “It sounds more poetic than it looks. We don’t even have a blanket.”

  “If I weren’t a gentleman, this would be the opportunity for me to say that I could help keep you warm.”

  “You’re not a gentleman.” She giggled at nothing in particular. She was starting to feel giddy. It had been a long, stressful day, topped off by the horrible moments when she had thought that Ethan might be killed for her sake.

  He had walked up to the circle of pines and was using one foot to scrape the pine needles into a pile. “You’d better hope I’m a gentleman, Hannah Forrester, because it’s going to be one hell of a long night.”

  Something in his voice told her that he was not teasing. She walked timidly toward him and began to push the needles from the other side of the “bed.”

  “So are you or aren’t you?” she asked softly.

  “A gentleman?”

  She nodded.

  He squinted to see her better in the dark. He spoke slowly. “I…don’t think so.” Then he took a giant step over the piled-up needles and seized both her arms. She could hardly see his face, but she felt his lips, and then the rest of his body hard against her. Her eyes closed, and she felt as if she couldn’t move as his lips skillfully worked against her mouth, opening it to entwine his tongue with hers in a liquid mating. He made a low sound in the back of his throat that sent a chill of excitement racing along her skin.

  His arms moved around her and pushed against her waist, bringing her against the heat of his lower body. Her own softness responded, and Hannah found her-self moving back and forth in a rhythm that seemed familiar, though it was completely new. His mouth never stopped as her lips and chin grew tender from his beard, her breasts grew hard and her arms weak.

  Finally, after endless moments, he pulled back his head and took a ragged breath. “There! I had to do that, lass. I’m sorry.”

  He released her and stepped backward, scattering pine needles every which way. “I’m no gentleman, but neither am I a scoundrel. Lie down and go to sleep. If you get too cold, wake me. We’ll try to share each other’s warmth without sharing anything else.”

  Hannah had felt cold the moment he stepped away. She supposed she should be grateful that he had not taken their embrace further. Her mother had always told her that once men were excited by a woman, they would stop at nothing until they had had their evil way with her. But Ethan had stopped. And Hannah didn’t know whether to feel ashamed or angry at the fact that she hadn’t wanted him to.

  Ethan sat with his back against a big maple tree, a few feet from Hannah’s prone form. He had watched her for what seemed like hours. Watched as she had turned and rolled and changed positions until finally she had curled up like a kitten and grown still. His eyes had become accustomed to the dark, and he could plainly see the soft curve of her hip and the gentle movement of her back as she breathed in deep slumber.

  He had no desire for sleep himself. He was used to taking his rest in brief snatches and often didn’t need any more than that. Though at times he would arrive at a wilderness station or other safe haven and sleep through a day and a night or more. This night his thoughts were too confused for resting. He had been a long time without a woman. Too long. And he wished he could blame his feelings about Hannah solely on that fact. But he knew what that kind of wanting felt like, and this was something beyond that.

  He wanted Hannah. Hell, he wanted her. But the wanting was coiled up with a whole lot of other feelings. Feelings like admiration, protectiveness, tenderness, respect. That last one was the troublemaker. He hadn’t wanted and respected a woman at the same time since he was twenty years old. He’d been young and foolish. The Boston society queen had not been worthy of either his respect or his desire. He had the feeling that Hannah was deserving of both. What she wasn’t deserving of was his interference with the very nice life she would have with Randolph Webster.

  He sighed and stood a moment to stretch out his muscles. The moon had risen. It was close to midnight, he reckoned. A long time till morning. Days ago on the way to Fort Pitt he had sworn to keep his distance from Hannah, he remembered as he slid back down against the trunk of the tree. But he hadn’t reckoned on spending a night alone with her—a long, empty night looking at the soft curtain of her blond hair spread out over the pine needles, almost close enough for him to touch.

  Hannah had no idea of the time. It was still the middle of the night, she was sure, though the moon had risen and the little clearing looked almost bright. Something had awakened her. She was lying on the bed of pine needles that she and Ethan had made, but he wasn’t at her side. A look around showed him sitting, propped against a tree, evidently asleep. The sound she had heard must have awakened him, too, because he lifted his head and slowly pushed himself against the tree trunk until he was upright.

  “I think I heard something,” she said softly.

  He motioned her to silence as they both strained to listen. All they heard were the night sounds of the woods. Without a sound Ethan got to his feet.

  “I don’t know what it could have been. Something woke me.” She spoke in a low voice. “You don’t think it’s the Indians, do you?”

  He walked over and dropped to his knee beside her. Now they could both distinctly hear a rustling in the woods to their left. Ethan made a reflexive move toward his belt, looking for his absent knife.

  “If the Indians had wanted to come back after us, they wouldn’t make any noise,” he told her. “It must be an animal.”

  “Wolves?” Hannah thought back to the wild animals Randolph had described when he had first told them about the Ohio River valley. Jacob had been fascinated by the wolf packs and had invented elaborate tales concerning them until his father had forbidden him from frightening his sister.

  Ethan’s head was lifted to listen. “I don’t think so. They come in groups, and I only hear one thing out there. It could be a bear, though.”

  All thought of sleep had fled from Hannah’s mind. She edged closer to Ethan. “Should we try to climb a tree or something?”

  Ethan laughed. “If it’s hungry enough, a tree wouldn’t help us.”

  “Do you imagine it’s hungry?”

  He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. She looked up at him, her eyes wide. For a moment the animal was forgotten as he gave in to the impulse he had had earlier and ran his hand slowly along her hair. It was as soft as rabbit fur against his roughened fingers. He swallowed. “Probably not. Most of the time bears are more afraid of us than we are of them. But if they decide to come after you…”

  He stopped. Her blond eyelashes flipped back the moonlight as she looked up at him, trusting, frightened. She was nestled against him, the side of her breast brushing his chest. The bear may or may not be hungry, but Ethan sure as hell was.

  All at once the rustling became louder. Hannah drew in a breath and clutched his chest. They both looked over toward the sound. At the edge of the trees a dark shape emerged into the clearing, round and furry, but most definitely not a bear.

  “It’s a coon,” Ethan said with a little laugh of relief. “A big fat ol’ coon.”

  The animal stopped at the sound of his voice. In the moonlight Hannah could see the stripes across its face and the beady little eyes that looked at them warily.

  “Do they bite?” she asked.

  “Yes. They can be nasty little critters when they want to be.” He made a noise that sounded like “whoosh,” and the raccoon skittered around and back into the forest. “He won’t bother us. He’s just looking around for a bit of dinner, and,
thanks to the Indians, we don’t have a morsel of food with us.”

  Hannah pulled herself out of his arms and flopped back down onto the ground. “I wouldn’t mind a bit of dinner myself,” she said.

  Ethan leaned on one arm and looked down at her. “I seem to remember that after all that food with the Indians today you said you didn’t care if you ever ate again.”

  “The way the day ended up, we both came a little too close to never eating again, if you ask me,” she said fervently.

  He smiled at her and touched her hair again. “I wouldn’t have let them hurt you.”

  “But as you said before, it was one against nine. You may not have been able to do anything about it.”

  He continued to stroke her hair and she made no protest. “Well, at least I was able to save you from that ferocious coon,” he said with a grin.

  “You’ve protected me more than once now, Ethan, and I’m grateful to you.” She tried to sit up again, but he pushed her gently back down again.

  “Stay there,” he said. “I like watching you lie there in the moonlight.”

  She smiled and looked around her at the moonlit trees. “I’ve decided your wilderness bedroom is not so bad after all,” she said.

  “I told you so.” Watching her, touching her, Ethan’s insides were turning to knots, and his resolutions were crumbling.

  “Are you going to go back to sleep?” she asked. The smile faded from her voice.

  He shook his head slowly. His hand moved from her hair to the tiny jet buttons at her neck. “Not yet,” he answered, his voice roughened.

  She reached up to stop his movements, then after a moment she released his hand and let it continue along toward her thudding heart. The night air felt cool on her hot skin as the dress opened. He unbuttoned with one hand, while the other made circles on her cheek, her neck, then lower on her chest, reaching soft sensitive places where no man had ever touched.

  She gave a little gasp as his warm palm covered a nipple. Then her dress was open to the waist and he said in a barely audible voice, “You’re so beautiful, sweetheart.”