After the meal, Linsey sat quietly sewing while he prowled restlessly around the room. Nothing held his attention, and he watched her from the corner of his eyes, waiting for her next move. He couldn’t help but wonder if the wait was worse than her action. He was to discover that it wasn’t.
“Bear, would you mind trying on this shirt?” Linsey held up a bright plaid flannel shirt she’d been working on for days. It hadn’t been easy with the boys to care for, but with them gone, she had quickly finished it.
He narrowed his eyes. Something wasn’t right. She had made him several shirts but had checked the fit on only the first one. Why, suddenly, did she need to see how this one fit?
“Oh, never mind,” Linsey replied with disgust when she saw his look. “I had to use the end of the bolt of material, and I was afraid I cut the sleeves too short. If it doesn’t fit when you put it on, it will be no one’s fault but your own!”
Rather sheepishly, he began to remove his shirt. He was acting childishly, being suspicious over her slightest request. Bare chested, he approached her, reaching for the shirt she had thrown onto the table. He slid his arms into the sleeves and flinched when he felt her hands on his chest.
“Don’t!”
“Don’t what? I was only helping with the buttons.” Linsey folded her arms and took a step back. “Do it yourself then!”
“I’m sorry, Autumn Fire,” he replied softly. “It’s only that … ah, well I mean…
“Just finish with the buttons and turn around,” Linsey said with a sigh.
Standing with his back to her, Bear did not see the narrowing of her eyes or the slight smile that crossed her lips.
Linsey placed her hands on his shoulders, satisfied with the fit of the shirt … and the tightening of his muscles beneath her fingers. Instructing him to lift his arms out to his sides, she lightly ran her hand from under his arm to the bottom of the shirt at his hip, delighting in his nearly silent groan as she followed the hem across his tight buttocks.
“Looks good,” she mumbled, pulling on the hem as long as possible. “Turn around. Let’s see how it looks from the front.”
Linsey carefully controlled her expression when she saw the muscle jumping in his jaw and his tightly clenched teeth. Her hands moved to his shoulders, and she heard his breath catch as she slowly smoothed the shirt over his chest. Again she had him hold his arms out to his sides, making a great show of checking the fit.
He flinched visibly when she took his hand and put it beneath her arm so that it rested against her breast. Linsey fiddled with his sleeve, pulling, stretching, straightening, insuring that each of her moves pushed her breast against his hand.
As she dropped his arm, Bear’s sigh of relief was choked off when she positioned his other hand in the same manner. Her hardened nipple burned into his palm, rubbing very gently with each of her movements. It was torture of the most subtle kind.
“Are you about finished?” His voice grated harshly in the silence as he fought to control the hardening of his body. It was a battle he was closer to losing each time she took a breath and her breast filled his hand.
“Men!” Linsey said, shaking her head. “You’re so impatient! I realize you don’t like trying on this shirt, but I promise I’ll finish as quickly as possible.”
She stepped away and let his arm fall. She had him move his arms in several different directions and made a show of studying how the shirt pulled. With his arms over his head, Linsey tugged at the hem, muttering about the length, letting her fingers appear to accidentally slip. They slid down the front of his pants, gently caressing the rigid bulge they encountered.
“Enough!” Bear roared, pulling away from her.
“Well, I guess it fits,” she sighed. “I really was worried about it, particularly after spending so much time on it.”
“I appreciate your work,” Bear said, his fingers clumsy as he attempted to undo the buttons.
“You really sound it,” she replied sarcastically.
“I guess I’m just tired.” He knew he sounded ungrateful, but another minute of her innocent touches and he would have thrown her onto the bed, and nothing would have stopped him from making love to her.
“I’m kind of tired, too. Let’s go to bed.” Linsey walked across the room, sat on the edge of the bed and began removing her leather shoes.
She rarely wore her dress and shoes, preferring the comfort of the Shawnee clothing, but after her bath, she decided it would suit her purposes better. When the shoes were untied, she kicked them off. Extending first one leg and then the other, she slowly roiled down her carefully mended stockings. Reaching beneath her skirt, she pulled off her drawers. From the corners of her eyes, she saw that Bear had unbuttoned the shirt and it hung halfway down his shoulders. His eyes were riveted to her hands, following her every move.
As her fingers moved to the buttons down the front of the dress, Bear began to wonder why he had decided not to make love to her again.
With painful slowness, first one button and then another came free. He decided it was a stupid decision — Linsey unworked the last button and slid one shoulder from the gown — a ridiculously stupid decision, he admitted to himself.
When her other creamy shoulder appeared and the dress slid to the ground, he knew he’d never made a dumber decision in his life.
The top of Linsey’s lacy cotton chemise was just above the slope of her breasts. The bottom rode at the very top of her thighs. Bear found himself hoping she’d raise her shoulders, very slightly. He nearly choked when she did and he caught a peek at tight red curls.
When they disappeared beneath the lace again, his eyes moved once more to her hands. Her nimble fingers opened the first two flat, white buttons. Bear let his shirt slide off his shoulders, unaware of it landing on the dirt floor.
Two more buttons and Linsey’s breasts bobbed before his eyes, only their rosy peaks hidden beneath the soft cotton. Bear hastily tore at the thongs lacing his moccasins.
He grew impatient when she moved her hands from her chemise, but as she raised her arms to release her hair, he lowered his eyes, once again feasting like a starving man on the fiery curls between her thighs.
When the curls disappeared, he groaned aloud, unaware of the sound drifting across the room. Linsey hid a smile, continuing to appear innocent of his growing passions.
Bear’s gaze traveled up her body, and he wondered when she had let down her hair. It hung over her shoulders, veiling her flesh. His eyes snapped back to her hands as she worked another button free, and he saw the inviting crevice of her navel. Bear’s hands went to the buttons on his pants. He stepped out of them before she could finish her last button.
“Woman!”
Linsey raised her eyes, and he watched as her expression turned from studied innocence to total seduction. She let her gaze drift slowly over his body, and it felt like a caress when it reached the level of his throbbing hardness. Slowly her eyes returned to his face, and she lightly licked her lips.
She tossed her head, and her hair flipped behind her shoulder, exposing one cotton-covered breast while seductively covering the other. With a slight shrug, the chemise seemed to drift from her shoulder, hanging for the length of a heart beat on the tip of her breast before sliding down. Linsey reached for the other side, effectively shielding her naked breast from his gaze with her arm.
Bear felt sweat bead his upper lip as he waited for her to free her other breast. An eternity passed before she slid the other strap down her arm. The lacy article of clothing clung to her hips, and Bear swallowed hard as he tried to pierce the hazy veil of red effectively hiding her breast.
Linsey turned toward the bed, put her hands under her hair and flipped it so that it cascaded down her back. It rippled in a fiery waterfall as she wiggled and let the chemise slide down her long legs.
“Woman, are you trying to drive me out of my mind?” Bear’s voice was a barely audible, husky whisper.
Linsey looked over her shoulder, her s
ilken tresses successfully hiding her body from his view. She smiled softly, her eyes a beckoning emerald gaze, “Why would I do that?”
“Because you’re wicked!” He was unaware of moving toward her, his legs following a command of their own.
“Are you complaining?”
“Never!”
Bear reached for her, turning her into his arms and pulling her against his body. His mouth met hers in a kiss hot enough to set the world on fire as he slowly lowered her to the bed. He knelt between her welcoming thighs, his body ablaze with a passion too intense for the slow, gentle loving he’d always known with her.
“Woman, what am I going to do with you?”
“Love me.”
He did.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Held captive by the glowing aftermath of their nearly violent loving, Linsey lay with her head on Bear’s shoulder, listening as his pounding heart slowed to normal. His arms were wrapped protectively around her, and she knew she’d never feel as safe anywhere else on earth. This was where she longed to spend the rest of her bfe. And she would fight to stay there, using any available weapon.
“Don’t take me back.” She kissed the smooth skin beneath her cheek. “I don’t think I could live without you.”
“Mon ange.” Bear’s voice was thick with regret. “I must. You have been protected all your bfe. There are , too many dangers waiting around every corner, and I can’t assure you a happy future here.”
Linsey sat up beside him, and he caught his breath at the beauty of her body as the firelight danced over it.
“Bear, no one knows the future. We can only take each day as it comes. With you, I would live my life to its fullest, and when problems arise we will handle them together.”
He shook his head, his eyes pleading with her to try to understand. “If you were to die because of something that could never have happened in the city, how do you think I’d feel?”
Placing her hand against his cheek, Linsey bent and kissed him. “It would be my choice to stay; you would go on, knowing I had been happy. We will create memories that will stay with us forever. Don’t make us spend the rest of our lives lonely for each other, perhaps growing bitter by the separation. I would rather have one year with you than fifty without you.”
Bear closed his eyes feeling the loneliness he knew would be his when she was gone. The future loomed bleak, every new day as desolate as the last.
“I will move to your city,” he finally said.
Linsey knew, without a doubt, that Bear would not survive living in a crowded city. He was a man of the wilderness, as free as the wind. He had to have the space of the forest, the challenges that went along with living on the frontier.
“No.” She slowly shook her head. “You couldn’t live in a place that has buildings instead of trees, people instead of animals. It would be easier for you to cut off your right hand than it would be for you to live in town.”
Bear knew she was right, but he wondered if he’d ever again be content anyplace without her at his side.
Lifting his hand from his chest, Linsey placed a gentle kiss in his palm. Slowly she lowered it to the slope of her abdomen.
“I carry your child.”
Silence as thick as storm clouds filled the room. It rolled and bounced around them as Bear closed his eyes while a pain sharper than any he’d ever known shredded his heart.
“I know,” he whispered.
“You know?” Linsey’s brow rose in amazement. “The Grandmother told me.”
“Are there no secrets from that woman?”
Bear let his hand drift over the rounded mound, treasuring the touch. He raised up and kissed her belly, then pulled her back into his arms. Side by side, legs entwined, they shared the knowledge of the life they had created.
“We will be married before we reach Philadelphia.”
“What?” Linsey tried to sit up, but be held her firmly.
“I will give you and the child my name; then no one will frown at his illegitimacy.”
“I will be a wife without a husband?”
“You’ll have a husband,” he replied.
“Sure, one I never see.” Again she struggled to be free, and Bear let her go. She sat up and pulled a blanket around her shoulders.
“I will come each spring to see you and my son.”
“Your son?” Linsey murmured a Gaelic curse. “The baby will be nearly a year old before you know if it is a son or daughter! Will you come each spring and leave me pregnant with another child that you can visit the next year?”
“No,” Bear pulled his arm over his eyes, trying to evade the picture she was painting. “I will not touch you again.”
“Oh, how nice!” Her voice thickened with sarcasm. “A husband I’ll see every spring, who will not be my lover. A father whose own child will not know him. I don’t need a husband like that!”
“My son needs my name.”
“Why? Since the war, illegitimacy carries no stigma. It is the duty of every woman to produce children to populate this new nation.” Linsey climbed off the bed and began pacing the room, the blanket flowing cape-like around her. “We will not be married. I’ll not wed a man who will not be my husband.”
“I will not argue this with you, woman.” Bear sat up and leaned against the wall. “My son will have my name.”
“We’ll consider our time together as a handfast,” she continued, ignoring him. “It is a time-honored tradition in Scotland. Sometimes it leads to marriage, sometimes not. I’m wealthy enough to support my child. He, or she, will want for nothing … except a father.”
“Linsey!” Bear clenched his hands into tight fists. “Who knows, I may find a man in Philadelphia that I want to marry. He will become the father to my child.”
Pain tore through him with the swiftness of a breath as he thought of another man as her husband. The promised agony of their separation was nothing when compared to the torturous knowledge of another man touching her, holding her … loving her.
“You are destroying me,” he said with a moan. “What do you think you’re doing to me?” she whispered. “I love you so much I feel like I’m dying from just the thought of being away from you.”
Tears filled her eyes, making her voice quaver with anguish. “Please, Luc, don’t send me away. I will die little by little without you.”
“I must.” His voice, too, was filled with agony. “For your own safety, I must take you back. I couldn’t protect Snow in the center of a crowded village. How could I ever hope to protect you, here where there is nothing or no one for miles? I don’t think I could survive losing you, Autumn Fire. Don’t ask that of me.”
Linsey walked to the table, sat down and placed her head in her hands. Nothing was resolved. The long night passed in silence, except for the occasional sob escaping her control.
From the bed, Bear listened, his heart breaking. He wanted to comfort her, to seek her comfort. The tortures of the damned were their companions through the long, dark night.
Linsey walked around the small cabin, touching this and that, letting the memories tumble through her mind. Tomorrow they would begin the journey back to Philadelphia. Months ago it had been all she wanted, to go home to the only life she had known. But now this had become home, this floorless cabin deep in the woods. She had fallen in love not only with Luc LeClerc but with his wilderness.
She could hear Bear outside the opened door finishing his preparations for the trip. Their departure was several days earlier than he had originally planned, but neither of them could stand the wall of silence that had grown up between them. They shared the same cabin, the same bed, but when night came, Linsey curled up in a tight ball, her back to Bear. They spoke only when necessary, which was seldom. Ail the words had been said, all the arguments aired. To wait longer just caused the agony to grow.
Linsey touched the kettle she had used to melt endless buckets of snow and felt the tears slide silently down her cheeks. She had never cried so much
in her life! She fought to hide the tears from Bear, but she knew he was aware of them. He would catch sight of her flushed face, and the telltale muscle in his jaw would start to jump.
He still insisted that they marry before reaching Philadelphia. With a shrug, Linsey agreed. It seemed to mean so much to him, and she knew she’d never marry any other man. Nothing seemed to matter much to her now.
Startled from her thoughts by voices outside, she dried her tears and walked to the door. Wolf spoke quietly with Bear. The baby was in his arms; beside him stood Chattering Squirrel holding a rope tied to the goat.
Seeing her, Chattering Squirrel dropped the rope and ran across the clearing, throwing himself into her arms. Linsey hugged the toddler tightly, her green eyes again clouding with tears.
“Maman?” Squirrel pulled away, his face showing his bewilderment. “Maman here? Fower here?”
Linsey bit the inside of her lip, blinking fiercely. “No, sweetheart. Your maman and sister are not here,” she whispered, trying to swallow the lump forming in her throat.
His dark eyes expressed his disappointment with heart-breaking eloquence. “Maman gone, no take me. Why maman go, no take me? Me good boy!”
Linsey raised her eyes to the men and found in their dark gazes the same torture she was feeling. How to explain to a two-year-old that his mother and sister were dead was far beyond her ability. She pulled Squirrel into her arms and tried to comfort the child as he repeatedly asked for his mother.
“My sister,” Wolf said quietly, “I must ask a great thing of you. If you choose to say no, I will understand.”
Linsey stood and carried Chattering Squirrel with her as she crossed to him. She handed the toddler to Bear, then turned to Wolf, waiting for him to continue.
“Many years ago, the Shawnee nation split. Half of the people decided to leave this land that the white man wanted and journey west. The other half, including the people of my tribe, decided to stay and fight for the land of their birth. If we had gone, my tribe would still be strong, but because we stayed we have suffered as never before.
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