With a yelp of excitement Echo joined them, staring at the unimportant-looking little locket in awe. “What do you know about her?”
“Wait,” James said, shaking his head. “Red, how could this be your great-grandmother? If she had a son, he’d be your grandfather. Your grandfather couldn’t have been born during the Civil War. It’d make him too old.”
Erica shook her head raggedly, still studying the locket. “Grandpa Gallatin was almost seventy when my father was born; He never had any children by his first three wives. One divorced him, and two died. His fourth wife—my grandmother—was a twenty-year-old actress.”
“Get ’em as kittens, train ’em right,” James offered wryly. “Good idea.”
Erica punched his arm. “Grandpa Gallatin was a third-rate stage actor in New York and a first-rate lecherous old coot, or so my mother claims. My dad was born two days after his sixty-ninth birthday.”
Echo patted her arm enthusiastically. “Then maybe this was your great-grandmother’s locket! What do you know about your great-grandfather?”
“His first name was Ross—-that’s all I’ve ever been told. I know that he was half-Cherokee and had two brothers—and a sister who died as a baby.” She handed the locket to James so that his steady hands could hold it under the light.
“R.T.,” he repeated softly, looking at the first set of initials. “Could be that the last initial used to be a G for Gallatin.”
Erica collapsed weakly into Grandpa Sam’s recliner. “That would mean that my great-grandfather was shot by his own tribesmen for being a spy from the Union army.”
“A Yankee,” Grandpa Sam said in a tone of regret, as if that were the only sad part of it. “Oh, well.”
Feeling very defeated. Erica murmured, “I’d hoped that he’d be an … Indian.”
Echo nodded. “Traditional, you mean. A Cherokee, not a white man who happened to have Cherokee blood.”
“Yes. I thought I’d feel closer to my Cherokee heritage once I knew more about him.”
“Ross must have been a hero to the Union forces,” James told her gently. He thought for a second, then snapped his fingers. “And if he was, then his name ought to be listed in the records at the National Archives.”
Erica nodded. “Maybe I can check over the phone.”
James’s silence made her look at him closely. His expression was guarded. “I’ll check for you. I’m going to be in Washington for the next two weeks.”
Somehow she managed to hide the fact that she’d just been knocked down. Erica gave him a quizzical frown. “Oh? Business?”
He nodded. “If I’m moving back here, I have arrangements to make.”
“I need to check in at my office, so I’ll go—”
“Nope, you stay here and learn about life on the reservation. That was the deal.”
Erica clutched the arms of her chair. Had he grown bored with her so soon? He’d hardly let her out of his sight for a week, and now, suddenly, he was anxious to leave. Had he simply done his duty in bed and then felt he could move on? “You agreed that I could take care of my business,” she reminded him.
“Later. You can go to Washington after I come back.”
So she’d be out of his way around Dove’s house. Erica thought in despair. He’d realized that she was in love with him, and this trip was his way of reminding her not to take their arrangement too seriously.
“Okay. Sure,” Erica told him affably, and shrugged. She was aware that Echo and Grandpa Sam were watching the scene with quiet interest.
The look she got from James was so intense that she knew he’d been concerned about her reaction to his trip. Erica kept her face composed.
If there was any way of winning him over, it certainly wasn’t by acting possessive.
“You don’t mind?” he asked.
“No. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy. Becky’s going to teach me how to do beadwork.”
“Beadwork, huh?”
The tone of his voice suggested that he didn’t see how beadwork could fill up all her time, and the thought bothered him, somehow.
“And I’m going to get out and meet people,” she added.
“People?”
“You know, those two-legged creatures who cause so much trouble.”
“So you want trouble?”
She smiled jauntily. “Depends on what kind of people I meet.”
“Be careful. The men around here are afraid of drills.”
“I’ll just have to figure out other ways of getting their attention.”
He hooked a thumb in the waistband of his faded jeans and said lightly, “There are no elevators here.”
Grandpa Sam, who looked confused by the conversation and exasperated by the change of subject, said, “Eh-lee-ga, you keep the locket. If you find out it’s not your great-grandma’s, give it back to me. Now y’all come sit down. I’ve got more letters to read.”
Erica got up from the recliner, awkwardly trying not to touch James, who was standing in front of it, doing a good impression of an immovable object.
She couldn’t avoid brushing against him. Erica raised her eyes and looked at his unfathomable expression, feeling miserable and hoping that it didn’t show. She held out her hand for the locket.
He calmly put her family heirloom in his jeans pocket. “I might need to study it some more.”
“I don’t see why,” she said just as the phone rang and Echo went into the kitchen to take the call.
“You be a good little girl,” James said to Erica, “and I’ll give it to you when I get back from Washington.” He smiled, his arched brow conveying an innuendo that only she could see.
Erica’s misery turned to quiet anger. He had that squint-eyed appearance of determination on his face, that smug masculine look he’d had after he’d trapped her in the elevator and after he’d tackled her in an alley.
“Maybe I won’t want it anymore,” she said pleasantly.
“Oh, you’ll want—”
“Grandpa! James!” Echo ran into the den, her eyes frantic. “Travis’s house trailer is on fire!”
CHAPTER 9
THICK, ACRID SMOKE floated through the June night, and Erica’s stomach recoiled as soon as she leaped from the back of Grandpa Sam’s pickup truck. There was something particularly noxious about the burning scent of man-made building materials. The fake woods and space-age plastics that made up a modern house trailer tended to burn quickly and emit suffocating chemical fumes.
And James was already running toward the door of the trailer.
Erica raced after him, leaving Echo to grip Grandpa Sam’s arm in an attempt to keep him from following James. One of the reservation’s fire trucks was already on the scene, and Erica saw James grab a volunteer fire fighter by the sleeve of his overcoat.
She reached the two men in time to hear the volunteer yell something about Travis. James bolted inside the trailer.
The volunteer started after him, then glanced around and saw Erica heading full-tilt in the same direction. She dodged his outflung hands and leaped to the trailer steps two seconds after James had disappeared in a hell of black smoke.
Erica took one last breath of fresh air and vaulted into a roasting darkness that smelled like a coal furnace. She stumbled against furniture and pawed the air with both hands, as if she could clear a path in it.
No one could remain conscious more than a minute or two in that suffocating prison of smoke. Dear Lord, where were Travis and James?
Erica struggled forward blindly, the roar of nearby flames filling her ears, her lungs aching with the effort to find oxygen. She slammed into a wall, fell back against another, and realized that she was in some sort of hallway.
When she heard the sound of ragged coughing, she lunged forward and collided with someone. “James!”
“Get out of here!”
He was hunched forward, pulling Travis slowly along the floor. Erica anchored her hands under Travis’s arm and threw herself backward. She and Jame
s were both coughing violently now.
“Get out!” he yelled again.
“Save your breath!”
They got Travis to the end of the hallway and angled him toward the outer door. Travis moved weakly, trying to help himself, and by then Erica was so lightheaded that she was ready to crawl beside him.
When she fell down she felt James’s big hand sink into her shirt. He was staggering, but he managed to jerk her back to her feet. Together they used their last few seconds of strength to drag Travis to the trailer door.
Suddenly the air wasn’t quite so hot, and light shone through the smoke. Someone grabbed Erica and carried her outside. She lifted her head groggily and looked back to see other men pulling out James and Travis.
James was safe. Good. Now she could breathe again. It was time to pass out.
• • •
THERE WAS A whole pack of fidgeting Tall Wolfs in the medical clinic of the reservation, and one lone butterfly of the Blue clan who wasn’t allowed to sit up or even flutter a wing.
“Keep still,” James ordered. He sat beside her on the gurney and held a cold compress to her forehead.
Erica eyed him in dismay. His face was haggard, his eyes were bloodshot, his golf shirt and jeans were filthy, and he had a red burn welt across one forearm. All she’d done was faint, and she felt fine by then, but he wouldn’t let her get up.
“You’re the one who needs to be lying here,” she told him.
He bent over and kissed her—not for the first time since she’d come to, with her head in his lap—and then he whispered gently, “Keep still or I’ll tie you down.”
Travis was already sitting up on the gurney across the room, looking disgruntled because the doctor kept pressing a cold stethoscope to his bare chest. Echo and Grandpa Sam went from one gurney to another with the regularity of mother wolves checking their cubs.
Becky arrived, terrified because she’d heard vague details about a fire at Travis’s place that involved injuries, and she made a round of the gurneys twice before she was satisfied enough to calm down.
“What happened?” she asked tearfully.
“I drove up and saw smoke coming out of the windows,” Travis told her. “I radioed for help and then I went inside to save what I could.”
Becky hugged him fiercely. “You dumb brother, you almost got killed. There’s not anything worth that much.”
Travis looked across the room and met James’s eyes. “I wanted my pictures of Danna.”
James nodded. “I would have gotten them for you if I could have.”
Both men glanced away. Travis looked at Erica. “What you did was special. I’ll never forget it.”
Erica winced inwardly. He could compliment her, but not James. She watched the muscles tighten in James’s jaw. He took her hand and occupied himself by stroking the back of it.
In the awkward silence that followed, Erica decided it was time to build more bridges, even at the risk of being a meddler. “Travis,” she said softly. “James loves you very much, and I wish you’d say that you love him. This is a wonderful family; I envy you all. You don’t know how lucky you are.” She paused, fighting a knot of emotions in her throat.
“In my family everybody is too busy making career statements to notice one another. We never talk about our feelings.” She looked at Grandpa Sam. “My mother put her parents in a nursing home before they needed to go.” She looked from Becky to Echo. “My half sisters have always believed that being in the same family meant we had to compete with one another—at school, at our jobs, in terms of the clothes we wore, the number of men we had.”
Erica smiled wryly. “I didn’t fare very well in two out of those four areas.” She looked into James’s eyes and felt his hand close tightly around hers. “Nobody would do for me what you did for your brother tonight.” Then she looked at Travis. “Nobody would get involved in my problems and try to help the way James tried to help you.”
Grandpa Sam made a gruff noise and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m an old man, and I might die any day,” he said bluntly. “I want to know that my grandsons are at peace with each other.”
Travis looked at James for a moment. Frowning, he got off the gurney, took his blackened uniform shirt, and started for the door. When he got there he stopped, turned around, and told James hoarsely, “I don’t know if I can make peace with you, but I do love you.”
“I love you too,” James answered. “And I under stand how you could love Danna so much that nothing else mattered.”
The look on Travis’s face told Erica that he had never expected to hear those words from James. Slowly his gaze slid thoughtfully to her, then after a moment returned to James.
“Welcome home, little brother,” he murmured, then turned and left the room.
JAMES AWOKE WITH a painful ache in his bad knee and a delicious ache in other areas. He had slept lightly, dreaming about the long bath he and Erica had taken together, the way she’d licked the burn mark on his arm, the way she’d risked drowning to do incredible things to him while he lay in the tub smiling helplessly.
Later, in bed, he’d curled on his side and snuggled her against his body, with her legs draped lazily over his hips. He put his mouth next to her ear and told her more of the ancient Cherokee stories, while he kept one hand moving patiently between her thighs.
When he finished, the praises she moaned with such breathless emotion had nothing to do with his story-telling ability.
What now? Could he bring himself to leave for Washington? No. He’d simply tell her the truth—that he loved her and hoped that she was willing to love him too. If she wanted to try, somehow they’d make the situation work even if they lived apart.
James sighed with anticipation and reached out to draw her to him. When he couldn’t locate her he sat up quickly and looked around. Morning sunlight filtered through the living-room curtains; he heard birds singing outside, but the house was terribly silent.
James rolled to the edge of the bed and reached for his watch on the nightstand. He wasn’t human until he knew the time, an old discipline from all the years when he’d had to get up early every morning for foot ball practice. When he moved back to the reservation for good he intended to quit wearing a watch.
Under the timepiece was a slip of notebook paper. James squinted, then grabbed it and read the uncaring lines bitterly. “I’ve gone exploring for the day. Have a good flight to D.C. See you in two weeks. Kamama egwa.”
ERICA WAS IN the kitchen making construction estimates on a house for Travis when she heard a car door slam. Thinking that one of the Tall Wolfs had dropped by to visit, she kept working.
But when she heard the thump, ka-thump of someone hobbling up the porch steps she thought, James! And he’s hurt his knee again.
Erica ran to the front door. Lord, had he really been gone only six days? She didn’t care why he’d come back, she was just glad—
Kat Gallatin stood there, looking like a little Cherokee princess except for the fact that she wore baggy hiking shorts and a T-shirt that read “WOW. Women Of Wrestling.”
Above a pink Reebok her right ankle was wrapped in tape, and she held a crutch up as if she’d been about to rap on the door with it.
Kat took one look at Erica’s startled expression, clasped her chest dramatically, and said, “Don’t open your door so quickly! I’ve heard there are Indians around here!”
Erica gave a sputtering laugh and grabbed her arm. “Come in! What are you doing here? How did you get hurt?” As she guided her cousin to the couch she glanced out the window at Kat’s car, a souped-up old Mustang with mag wheels. It was appropriate.
“I got squashed defending a guy from the audience!” Kat settled on the couch, flipped back her waist-length hair, and propped her foot on the end of her crutch. “I was wrestling a monster named Lady Savage over in South Carolina two nights ago, and I got thrown out of the ring—but it was planned, you dig?
“But I landed in this guy’s lap and
he thought I was really hurt. So when Lady Savage comes after me, he gets between us, and she doesn’t like men, ‘cause her husband just ran off with her sister, so she tries to kill this guy.”
Erica stared at her cousin in amazement. “What did he do?”
“He wouldn’t hit back! I guess he didn’t want to hit a woman, even a big hulk like Lady Savage. So I had to punch her in the chops before she brained him, and she kicked me in the ankle!”
Kat sighed. “So now ‘I have a fracture and I can’t work for two months. I’d like to find that guy and twist his moustache off.” She paused, looking pensive. “But he had a great moustache. And he tried to protect me.”
“Oh, Kat. Do you need money?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m not broke yet. I heard from the lawyer that you were hanging out over here in Cherokee land, so I thought I’d hop by and okay my plan with you. I’m going back to Gold Ridge to camp on our property for a while. You know, back to nature, and all that.”
“Of course I don’t mind. And I’m sure Tess won’t, either.”
“I tried to call Tess, but she’s vamoosed somewhere.”
Erica explained what she knew about Tess’s situation. When she finished Kat was wide-eyed.
“Nothing that exciting ever happens to me!”
“Somebody named Lady Savage throws you out of the ring and a spectator risks a beating to rescue you? That’s not exciting?”
Kat laughed, and the two of them started a companionable conversation about all the things Erica had learned regarding her branch of the Gallatin family and Dove. Kat gave her the third medallion to show to Grandpa Sam, and by the time Kat left for Gold Ridge she had an armload of history books and was calling herself Wis-sah, for cat.
She roared away in the Mustang, spinning gravel, one small hand brandishing a rubber tomahawk out the window. She’d brought it at one of the tourist shops in Cherokee town.
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