Katherine faced him. “Of what concern is my safety to you, sir? You’ve done your duty.”
He stared down at her with astonished gray-green eyes that slowly narrowed. “I’m not gonna let Jesse Blue Song’s daughter end up like the rest of the Cherokee women around here. If you don’t know what the militia boys are doing to them, I’ll tell you.”
Katherine’s knees went weak, and she almost choked on the pain in her throat. “Are you saying that my mother and sisters …?”
She swayed and raised a hand to her mouth. Suddenly Justis Gallatin stepped close to her and took her in his arms. Her pride failed to keep her from leaning against him.
He cursed softly under his breath. “Forgive me, gal. No. That didn’t happen to them.”
She didn’t believe him, but she was touched by his sympathetic lie. Her eyes shut, tears scalding her cheeks, she finally managed to say, “No one else cares. Why do you, Mr. Gallatin?”
He led her to a shady spot under a maple tree, and they sat down. He kept an arm around her, which offended her sense of propriety, but not enough to make her rebuke him. Her father had liked him and trusted him, which might mean that he was a good man.
But a blunt one. “I’ve got selfish reasons, gal … Miss Blue Song. You’re a beautiful woman, a woman with education and culture. I want you for my wife.”
Numbed and exhausted by grief, she gazed up at him in dull disbelief. “I won’t marry just to have a roof over my head, sir. Besides, you can’t marry an Indian.” Sarcasm tinged her voice. “It would scandalize polite society—and your friends would call you a squaw man.”
“Not up north. That’s where I’m heading—gonna put some Gallatin gold into New York investments.”
“Blue Song gold,” she corrected. “Taken from Cherokee land. Stolen from people who were peaceful farmers and merchants.”
“Your pa and I went in business together. There was no stealing on my part. I did everything I could to protect him and his, but I couldn’t stop what happened. I didn’t want to see the Cherokees driven off the land, and I fought many a white man over that difference of opinion.” He paused. “Now. If you want to have a say in how the gold’s spent, come with me. We don’t have to get married until you get accustomed to me.”
“How noble of you,” she said drolly.
“Not the least bit. And I don’t give a damn what polite society thinks of me. Never have. But I’ll get you a chaperone—I’ll hire you a wagonload of chaperones to keep your reputation up till we say the ‘I do’s.’ How about that?”
“Mr. Gallatin, you’re very presumptuous.”
He shrugged. “You think on it, gal. You got nobody but me.” Standing, he held out a hand and helped her to her feet. He swept an experienced, predatory gaze around the woods while one hand came to rest on the pearl-handled pistol tucked in his belt. “We best get back to town. I’ve killed my share of the trash roaming these woods. Like to avoid killing any today.”
He looked down at her and spoke with another show of gentleness. “I’ll walk off a little ways. You say your farewells. Say ’em good—you probably won’t come back here.”
She watched Justis Gallatin go to the horses, her mind spinning with the idea that this white invader thought he could have her for the asking; that she’d willingly become intimate with his moustache-draped mouth and lean, hard-looking body.
She didn’t understand the strange sensation that thought created inside her, and some warning instinct told her she was better off not contemplating it. Slowly Katherine turned and faced the valley for the last time.
She ached with sorrow. This land of glorious forests, rivers, and rolling, blue-green mountains was part of her family, pan of her blood.
As she grieved for all she’d lost she formed a silent, sacred promise to herself. Nothing must ever take this land away from her. There must come a day when the legacy of her family would live again here.
Katherine whispered a phrase in Cherokee. It meant more than a promise. It was a prophecy.
Someday.
Tempting
the Wolf
CHAPTER 1
WHAT THE HELL was he doing there? And what difference did it make?
James Tall Wolf leaned against a wall outside the opulent banquet room, one expensively loafered foot crossed over the other, big-knuckled hands shoved in the pockets of custom-tailored trousers, an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth.
He asked himself the same questions every time he spoke at one of these shindigs, and lately it had been at least once a month. Was he just a curiosity, or did these business types really listen? How could he make them listen? Should he just tell them to go suck a totem pole, that Native Americans didn’t need their smug patronage?
“Mr. Tall Wolf! I’ve been looking for you!”
James glanced down the hall. The little blonde was so close that he could see her eyelashes flutter invitingly. Her gaze lingered on his face as if she’d never seen such fascinating features. He straightened and put his cigar in his shirt pocket.
“Mr. Tall Wolf,” she said sweetly, and held out a hand. “Let me show you to your table. I’m Lisa, the publicity coordinator for the developers’ association. We’re so glad to have you as a speaker. You’re such a credit to your people. “
James smiled at her, shook hands, and felt her forefingers stroke his palm. Credit to your people. Okay, he wouldn’t tell her how insulting that line was. He’d learned long ago that there was no tactful way to explain without coming across as arrogant and oversensitive, neither of which did the tribe’s image any good.
“Why, thank you,” he said drolly. “It’s not true that the only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
She laughed. “Oh, it’s so nice to see that you have a sense of humor about yourself.” She caressed his arm through the sleeves of his dark jacket as they walked into the ballroom of the hotel. “Do you get back to D.C often, these days?”
“Every few months. I’ve got some real-estate investments here.”
“I’m a big Redskins fan.”
In more ways than one, James thought wryly. “Thank you.”
“I was sorry when you retired.”
“I was too. But I like to walk without limping.”
“You look very healthy. Very.” She led him between banquet tables that were quickly filling with members of the developers’ association. “Do you ever see your old teammates?”
“Occasionally. I’ve been away from pro ball for three years, though.”
“Which reservation do you live on? The one in Oklahoma or in North Carolina?”
“Neither. I’ve got a little piece of land in Virginia.”
She looked surprised. “But I thought—”
“That all Indians lived on reservations.” He smiled wickedly. “I’m a renegade.”
“Yum. I’d love to see your teepee some time.”
“It’s not called a teepee. And it’s not much to see.”
“I’m free this weekend.”
“Sorry. I’ve already accepted an invitation to a scalping party.”
“You like blond hair?” She pulled a strand of hers over one eye and winked at him. “Think of the delicious contrasts we could make.”
They reached the table on the dais and stopped. James shook her hand in farewell. Again he felt the slow, intimate movement of her fingertip in his palm. He sighed. “Lisa, I’m saving myself for marriage.”
She jabbed him with her nail. “You’re kidding!”
“Nope. There’s only so much of me to go around. I have to save my energy every chance I get.”
She studied his slitted eyes, frowned, and suddenly seemed grateful to introduce him to the association’s president, so that she could end her responsibilities.
James sat down next to the president and distractedly exchanged greetings with him and the other men at the head table. His thoughts churned. Once upon a time he would have encouraged the blonde’s attention and heartily enjoyed the resul
t.
Now he understood that he was an exotic pet to many women; through him they could fulfill some harmless Wild West fantasies about noble savages, he guessed. He was good at giving them what they wanted, but he didn’t get enough in return anymore.
I’m getting old and cranky, he told himself as he ate his salad. His bad knee ached more often than it used to, and he missed his family down in North Carolina more than ever. He hadn’t been home in four years, and, homesick as he was now, still he remembered funerals and bitterness.
“The ugly ones always make trouble.”
“You think she’s ugly?”
“She’s six feet tall, for cryin’ out loud! Women that big are always insecure. They don’t feel feminine, so they end up trying to dominate men.”
James forgot his brooding and listened curiously as his dinner partners continued to whisper among themselves.
“You don’t know Ricky, or you wouldn’t say that.”
The heavyset man to James’s left snorted derisively. “The broad stole that award from me last year.”
“Stole it? Hell. She earned that construction award.”
“Well, she sure didn’t sleep with anybody to get it. Not unless one of the judges liked big-mouthed, skinny broads.”
Intrigued, James looked around for the troublesome Ricky.
“Excuse me. Thank you. Sorry I’m late.” The tall woman slipped awkwardly between nearby tables, bumping people with a scuffed brown briefcase.
She was gawky in an endearing sort of way; not clumsy, exactly, but all arms and legs, in a blue skirt and jacket that were too plain and a little too big. Her wavy, shoulder-length chestnut hair was laughably disheveled, but it reflected the overhead lights in glossy coppers and golds that held James’s rapt gaze.
No one would ever call this woman pretty, not in the soft, rounded way of most women, but no man in his right mind would call that combination of statuesque body, glorious hair, and beautifully chiseled face ugly.
She drew glances from many in the nearly all-male crowd, and the red dots on her cheeks told James that she was painfully uncomfortable with the attention. She scooted into a chair at a table right in front and sat there with rigid dignity. He could see her profile, and in it he read careful reserve. She was a successful woman in a profession dominated by men from the highest management to the lowest laborer, and she probably knew that she was an easy target for jealousy.
James studied the tentative, tight smile she offered her table mates. She was aware that her entrance had elicited everything from compliments to contempt. She was definitely an outsider.
You and me both, doll, James told her silently. A tingling sense of arousal came over him, a sudden affection and protectiveness. His body’s response didn’t surprise him, but the sentimentality did. He kept watching her in the hope she would look in his direction.
The man who’d defended her at James’s table turned around and called, “Hey, Ricky, leave the killer briefcase at the office next time.”
She swiveled, looked relieved to see a friendly face, and patted the bulky leather rectangle by her ankles. “I was out at a site, and my truck died. I took a cab. And I have to go back to the office after dinner.”
“All work and no play, Ricky,” he said teasingly.
The heavyset man snickered. “She’s not exactly a plaything. I’d rather make it with a construction crane.”
“You know,” James told him in a soft, pleasant tone, “one of the most distinguishing things about Cherokee culture has always been its respect for women. Cherokee women could fight in battle and hold positions of power on the councils. And the family structure was a matriarchy.”
The man slapped his thigh and guffawed. “The squaws were in charge while the braves lay around.”
A waiter placed a thick steak in front of James. He studied it for a moment, wondering idly how it would look flattened on his table mate’s face. “Former Redskin wallops jackass with beef. Details at eleven.” No, it would play too big in the media.
“Some of us don’t use those terms,” James explained patiently. “Squaw, brave, buck, papoose—they’re considered demeaning stereotypes.”
“Don’t tell me you people are into all that consciousness raising, affirmative-action stuff. You’re a businessman, just like me. You know that all this minority bellyaching is ruining us.”
James’s frayed patience dissolved in one blistering second of anger. The depth of that anger startled him, but he knew he had nothing to fear from it. In the old days, when he was out of control, he would have thrown a plateful of steak in the man’s face, and probably his fist, too.
He glanced up and saw the skinny redhead gazing at him anxiously. The look in her eyes was so worried that he stared back at her, shocked that a stranger had deciphered his mood.
James was a master at returning flirtations, but this was no flirtation. This was compassion. He lost himself in her soulful green eyes.
“What about that issue, James?” the obnoxious questioner asked. “Are you people big on federal handout programs?”
James turned slowly to the man. “We’re big on anything that helps us keep what’s left of our land and culture.” He tossed his napkin on the table and told the association president, “Come get me when you need me. I’ll be in the hall.”
He stood and walked out of the room. Even in his anger it seemed to James that he could feel the redhead’s eyes on him as he left.
THERE HAD TO be a bond between people with Cherokee blood, Erica thought. Why else would James Tall Wolf have returned her gaze so intensely and with such gratitude?
She could barely eat. Where had he gone? What had that jerk, Harold Brumby, said to him? Harold, a hulking Archie Bunker type, as sensitive as a log, was constantly in trouble with some union or other.
James Tall Wolf. The moment she’d learned that he was the guest speaker at the association’s spring meeting she’d rearranged her schedule so she could attend. For years she’d heard of the Cherokee Indian who played defense for the Washington Redskins.
The press always made a big joke out of the coincidence—an Indian Redskin—but, not being a football fan, she’d never paid much attention. And after all, James Tall Wolf had left professional football three years ago, owing to a knee problem.
From now on, she’d pay attention.
She tuned in to the conversation at her table.
“He’s off the juice, you can tell. I bet he’s dropped thirty pounds since he retired.”
“You know that stuff turns ’em into monsters. It makes ’em big and mean.”
“Wolfman was one of the meanest. I swear, I think his own teammates were afraid of him sometimes. But he was great.”
“The coaches like that, when the guys are half crazy. It’s a big macho thing. Everybody thought it was funny when the Wolfman used to tear up benches with his bare hands.”
The men chuckled among themselves. Erica sat there feeling a little stunned. “What’s juice?” she asked. “Alcohol?”
“Steroids,” one of the men explained. “Growth hormones.” He growled comically. “Testosterone.”
“Ah.” James Tall Wolf didn’t look as though he needed any extra of that. “Aren’t steroids dangerous?”
“Sure. But a lot of the guys in pro football take them. Makes ’em play better.”
“Defensive linemen are animals anyway,” someone added. “Gorillas in helmets.”
Erica poked nervously at her food. She’d made eye contact with a dangerous man, then. Funny, he’d looked gentle. There was something exciting about being noticed by a man who tore up benches with his bare hands.
She waited anxiously for him to come back into the room; finally, during dessert, he did. Erica had hoped to study every fascinating detail of him, but as soon as he appeared his gaze went straight to hers.
She clutched the napkin in her lap. What had she done to deserve this scrutiny? Frowning, she turned her attention to a piece of runny lime pie and a
te as if it were delicious.
But every time she glanced up, he was still watching her. Her stomach twisted. She knew she’d made a gawky entrance. That must be it—Harold Brumby had probably made fun of her, as she knew he’d done frequently since she’d won the construction award away from him.
Perhaps Harold had told some disgusting lie, and it had made James Tall Wolf find her fascinating, like a bizarre story in a grocery-store tabloid.
“Martian Disguised as Female Housebuilder. Two-Headed Hammers Discovered!”
She made certain her pie lasted until the association’s president got up and welcomed James as the guest speaker. Erica kept her attention on the last crumbs as she listened carefully to the introduction. Honors and awards as a star player for North Carolina State—the Wolfman had played for the N.C. State Wolfpack (hah-hah)—then many more as a defensive lineman for the Redskins (hah-hah); and now James Tall Wolf was a successful entrepreneur, with varied investments in real estate.
And to top it all off, as the president pointed out, James was a full-blooded Cherokee, who devoted much of his spare time to telling his inspirational story to groups all over the country.
Give ’em hell Tall Wolf she thought proudly. As everyone applauded. Erica lifted her gaze to the podium and clapped vigorously.
The Wolfman was looking directly at her.
Erica’s hands hesitated in midair. She could do nothing but gaze back at him and wait to see what he’d do next. What he did was start talking in a deep, melodic voice faintly touched by a Southern drawl; a voice so rich that it made her think of chocolate.
Finally he drew his gaze away from her to look at his audience. Erica sagged as if a puppeteer had let go of her strings.
Tall Wolf was perfection molded from bronze, his hair the color of sable, his eyes like dark mahogany. His features were classic—the high cheekbones, deep-set eyes, wide mouth, and blunt nose of a beautiful American original.
He had to be six-feet-four, at least, and his post-football body was big but lean. He knew how to dress and obviously had the money to dress well; he wore a black sports coat, blue-gray pants, a crisp white shirt with a broadly spaced blue stripe, and a blue tie. A thick gold watch gleamed on his wrist.
Follow the Sun Page 16
