by kps
There was a sudden flash, and several more, as he lunged, scooping the slippery trout out of the water and casting it toward shore. Applause greeted the accomplishment, followed by an excited cry from his appreciative, admiring audience as he flipped another even larger fish onto shore. Dev paused then, proud of having distinguished himself, and with a comical exaggeration bowed from the waist. "For your dining pleasure, m'lady," he said with a flourish of his hand, "fresh as you're ever likely to have!"
Jenny jumped up enthusiastically, anxious to try it herself. It looked so easy, or at least Dev's dexterity had made it look so. "Please, Dev ..." she called out, "let me try it!" Dev started to protest that the rocks were too slippery, but Jenny was already wading out to join him. "I guess there's no harm in letting you try," he admitted, meeting her halfway and holding his arm under her elbow,for support until they were back at the spot again. "Okay now, you've got to move quick once you see one, but try and stay calm. If you're too jerky, it'll scare 'em away before you even get your hands down."
He stood just behind her, in case she lost her balance. In a few seconds, he spotted another ripple of iridescent silver and pointed.
Jenny wriggled her toes in the gravel, trying to get a firmer stance, then slowly, as she'd seen Dev do, lowered her hands until they were into the water up to the depth of her wrists. She held her breath as the fish came within range, and the swift current dragged at the sodden edge of her skirt as she lunged, felt the smooth almost slimy feel of the trout's body and, in horror, let go. A splash of white water was the only reward for her try, that and Dev's laughter as she lost her balance .and fell against him.
Dev caught her up, lifting her free of the water and starting for shore, laughing the entire time she protested she'd almost had the fish. "You didn't tell me it would feel like that. If you'd warned me ..."
Later he wasn't sure what it was ... the heat, or the way she'd looked at him with desire earlier, or perhaps the feel of her soft, full breasts, with nothing between his skin and hers but the thin blouse of buckskin, but before he let her go, his mouth came against hers in a searching kiss, cutting off her plea to let her try once more.
The action took Jenny completely by surprise, but it seemed so right that she didn't struggle against him, or against her own response. He let her down slowly, almost sliding her down his body, never taking his mouth away . as Jenny's lips parted with an involuntary whimper and his tongue drove past the fallen defenses. She clung to him, lightheaded, sure that if he took away the support of his arms tightly banding her waist and shoulders, she would collapse. His warm, naked flesh, heated by the sun, felt firm and supple as she circled his neck with her arms, locking her fingers together through the sun-kissed, brown curls at his nape.
Dev drew away from her mouth, and his lips found the little hollow at the base of her throat where a pulse raced madly, and he groaned, knowing he couldn't stop now, couldn't go back to the respectful distance he'd maintained since the wedding. Again he swept her up, carrying her beneath the low-hanging branches to the sheltered bower of soft, fallen leaves they formed, laying her carefully down, then settling beside her.
Jenny whirled in contrasting emotions, timid and impassioned, frightened and aroused, and as Dev's hand slipped under her blouse and began to caress her breasts, she sobbed, "Stop!
Oh, please ... Dev ..."
"I can't ... not now," Dev whispered hoarsely. "Jenny-you want me, you know you dol The way you looked at me, the way you held me … don't fight it, Jen ... it's right."
' What if someone sees us?" she replied, her cheeks burning with shame, a great deal of it due to her abandoned, naked response to the closeness of his body. "The women are ..."
"Far away," Dev finished, his fingers grazing the hardening buds of her nipples. "Nobody'll see us here, baby, we're hidden by the ..." Dev pushed the blouse up, and Jenny, defeated by her own needs, raised her arms so he could pull it over .her head. "God ... you're beautiful,"
he whispered in awe.Towering his head to engulf one swollen nipple with his mouth, swirling his tongue around it in teasing circles, even as his hand fondled her thigh, then impatiently pulled the skirt to her waist and slipped back to touch the velvet warmth between her thighs.
Jenny forgot her inhibitions, lost them to the raging heat of desire that swept her flesh at Dev's gentle-urgent handling. He had said he couldn't stop and ... Lord, forgive her, she didn't want him to, would have cried out in frustration if he had! It seemed wherever Dev touched her he left a burning brand on her flesh. It was right ... it was, she thought in a torment of rising passion.
Dev moved over her, careful to keep his weight from crushing her, and as he continued to caress the soft fullness of her breasts, he freed himself from the breech-cloth. Freed from the constricting material, the heavy, rampant staff between his thighs throbbed with life, with a demand that would no longer be denied. Dev poised, entered the welcoming heat that radiated from Jenny's thighs and thrust deeply, his groan blending with the soft, satisfied sigh that tore from Jenny's throat.
There, with the fresh, open scent of the woods surrounding them, the two young bodies melded and clashed, thunder and lightning sharing the intensity of a turbulent summer storm-a storm of feeling, of passion that conquered even as it was vanquished.
Afterwards, Jenny was suddenly quiet, giving Dev the unsettling impression she regretted what had happened. In an effort to get her to reveal what she was thinking, he spoke. "I ...
uh ... I haven't stuck to our agreement very well, have I, Jen?"
Silence greeted the query. Jenny was nestled in his arms .still lying close beside him, yet her gaze was directed off through the veil of leafy boughs sheltering the oak 'bower, and he had the feeling she was miles distant from him, unreachable. "If you're mad at me, you can hit me," he teased, and still there was no answer, only a sigh that escaped her, a sad, almost wistful sigh. "Come on, Jen ... you're making me feel as though I've taken advantage of you.
You know you enjoyed it as much as me ... at least you seemed to."
What woman wouldn't have enjoyed the tender, aggressive way Dev had taken possession of her, Jenny thought. The response Dev had aroused in her was the reason behind her reflective mood. No, he hadn't taken advantage of her, she'd been all too willing. She was married to him, this handsome, lithe stranger at her side, yet only out of necessity. When she'd accepted his proposal, she hadn't anticipated the possibility that it would be other than they'd discussed, a mutual agreement toward a common goal, saving her the embarrassment and her parents the hurt of a child born out of wedlock. Jenny didn't want to feel anything for Dev, not the attraction to his body she'd just discovered, nor the tender regard for him that was beginning to blossom within her.
"I won't lie, Dev," she said finally, turning her face up to gaze at him, "you made me feel ...
like a woman again, instead of an object to satisfy a man's lust. And I appreciate that, I really do, but ..." She was having an awful time explaining what she meant, perhaps because Jenny wasn't sure what she wanted herself. How could she explain to him that she'd been hurt once before by falling in love, that Rodrigo's crude trampling of her most tender feelings had left her frightened to leave herself open to the same pain again?
"But you'd rather I stuck to our agreement and left you alone, is that it?" Dev had taken her hesitation for an attempt to let him down easy; she was trying to tell him, in her ladylike way, that he should look elsewhere to satisfy his desires. He took his arm from around her shoulders and sat up, looking for his clothes to dress. "Why don't we just leave it at this-we both enjoyed a pleasant tumble by a stream, and it won't happen again."
Dev stood up, brushing the branches back out of his way with an angry shove, and Jenny was alone in the dim light of the sheltered bower. She stared after him, stricken by the brusque, careless way he'd referred to their interlude, and the magic of the afternoon was lost. With shaking hands, she fumbled for her skirt and blouse, carried them to the s
tream and washed, then, with leaden fingers, pulled the clothes on. When she emerged from behind the oak, Dev was dressed, squatting on his haunches near the water as he cleaned and gutted the trout he'd caught earlier.
When she came up to him, thinking she should further explain her feelings, the look he gave her cut off the attempt. He no longer seemed antagonistic, but there was little warmth in his eyes, and his voice was quietly authoritative as he told her to get her boots on and he'd see her back at camp.
The anger in the glare Jenny gave him as she whirled away was gratifying to him. With a slight smile on his face, he returned to cleaning the fish, but at the first sound of her cry of pain, he was up and running. Jenny had stopped halfway to the big tree and when he reached where she'd left her leggings, was holding her left foot, her face contorted in pain.
Dev roughly swept her into his arms, carrying her over to the large, gnarled root where her boots lay. "You sure make a hell of a squaw!" he snapped, brushing her hands away as he held her foot and pulled out the cockleburr that had stuck to her heel. Ignoring her near-tearful protest, he shoved each one of her boots on and tied them just below the knee, then pulled her to her feet with an angry jerk. "Now, if you're not too damned stubborn to listen, get back to camp like I told you to ... before you do yourself some permanent harm!"
Dismissed like a recalcitrant child, made to feel awkward and graceless, Jenny stomped away from Dev, and when she reached the edge of the trail leading up to the village, began to run.
Dev almost called out to her, a warning to be careful of the scrub roots that sometimes wound across the path, but she was quickly out of sight.
He stalked over to the fish, strung them onto a thong he'd pulled from the discarded breechcloth and was about to start back. He was half-tempted to apologize.
No, he thought, throwing the stringer of trout to the ground, I'll be damned if I'll be the one to apologize!
Instead he stripped off his buckskins and headed for the stream to swim. "Let her brood for a while and wonder where I am," he said aloud. At the water's edge, he stretched, entirely naked and enjoying the breeze against his skin. He had just waded in and was nearly waist-deep when he heard a bold giggle from somewhere near shore.
Turning, he was surprised to find a girl peering at him from the sheltering bushes at the stream's north shore.
He only vaguely remembered her as Tall Shadows, one of the willing young maidens some of the braves had been discussing the other day. More in revenge for the way Jenny had treated him after their lovemaking than out of desire, Dev gestured to the girl to join him.
Without a second's hesitation, she stripped away her blouse and skirt and splashed into the water, giggling again as he made a grab for her, playing a game of coy teasing that would only lead to one end.
Jenny pretended to be sleeping when Dev finally returned to their tepee almost an hour after the sun had set. She heard him moving around, stripping off his clothes, and wondered jealously where he'd been for so long. She hadn't made a meal, expecting him to honor his earlier promise to show her how to cook the trout over their cookfire. Had he stopped at some friendly fireside to share a repast or would he expect her to rise now and fix him something? Well, she thought to herself, before I cook anything, he'll have to explain where he's been!
But he didn't bother her, didn't even lie next to her. She heard him grab the spare blanket and settle on the opposite side of the lodge, tossing only a few minutes before the rhythmic sound of his breathing indicated sleep. Jenny glowered in the darkness. He hadn't even given her the satisfaction of a confrontation, and from the way he'd fallen asleep so quickly, she suspected he'd engaged in activities that had tired him even more than their own strenuous bout of lovemaking. Damn him, she cursed silently, almost angry enough to throw something across the tepee. How could he sleep so peacefully when she would be up for hours, wondering.
Gray Hawk stood at the edge of his village, studying his daughter-in-law Jenny as she leaned back against a tree on the hilI overlooking the stream. She had begun repairing one of his son's shirts but had set it aside as the heat of the late summer morning had made her languorous.
By the stream the women were gathering firewood and berries, and two groups of children played, the younger boys of the tribe using their smaller versions of their father's bows in imitation of the hunt, the very young girls pretending to wash clothes as they'd seen their mothers do. Underlying the peace and tranquillity of the scene was an electric tension.
Storm clouds were gathering; Soon everyone would have to scurry for shelter from the storm.
Dev had ridden off with the other braves this morning on a hunt to replenish the tribe's food supplies. His adopted son seemed moody of late, and the chief wondered about his relationship with Mariah's daughter. For a while, after the couple had settled in, they seemed happy together, but almost a week ago there had been a subtle change in the way they looked at each other, as though a wall had been erected to break their closeness.
Perhaps it was the pregnancy-women were often ill-tempered at such times.
He looked on in amusement now as A'Kima, his cousin Saloma's little granddaughter, labored up the hill toward Jenny and paused solemnly before her, shyly extending a blue wildflower as a gift. Gray Hawk was beginning to change his mind about the help his daughter-in-law had offered. The children were drawn to her … and children often saw what their elders did not. Pleased with the way her present had been accepted, little A'Kima skipped away to rejoin her friends, and Gray Hawk turned back in the direction of his lodge.
Jenny smiled to herself, twirling the long stem of the flower in her fingers. A'Kima, her eyes large and dark with the beautiful innocence of childhood, had told her the gift was for the baby. In the distance there was an ominous roll of thunder, and Jenny glanced up, watching the heavy, dark clouds swirl past, propelled by a strong, driving wind. She must retreat to the safety of her tepee before the rains came.
Suddenly a shrill childish scream came from the spot where the little ones had been playing, and Jenny raced down the hill toward the children as several of the other girls began to shriek. Half-hidden by leaves, a roottangled over the trail, and her right foot caught, sending her tumbling to the ground in a fall that knocked the breath from her. For a moment she lay there, dazed, her cheek bleeding from a bramble scratch. Then, panting, she scrambled to her feet.
More carefully now she hurried toward the sounds of distress beyond the heavy cover of bushes to her right. A'Kima lay stretched out on. the ground surrounded by a circle of her terrified friends. She moaned, her eyes half-closed against the pain of the small arrow that had struck the crook of her elbow. A short distance away, the guilty ten-year-old who had been playing at being a brave, stood in awed silence, horror-struck by what he had done and by the thought of the punishment in store for him. One of the boys had already raced off to tell Gray Hawk. As the women crowded into the clearing, and A'Kima's mother, Fox Tails, ran to her side and started to sob, Jenny took charge. Though the wound was not deep, a great deal of blood oozed from the puncture. When Jenny finally penetrated Fox Tails's terror, she held her daughter's arm steady in mute obedience to Jenny's calm, confident voice. Jenny carefully patted away the blood, then made a small incision with a knife borrowed from one of the boys to free the arrow tip. A'Kima would not lose the use of her arm muscles, but she would carry the scar the rest of her life.
Now Jenny had to stanch the flowing blood. Already the child looked pale and listless. Jenny spied a leather thong tied on the arm of one of the boys who pressed closely to watch.
"Give me that," she said in the Blackfoot tongue, and when he hesitated to give up his prized armband, Fox Tails snapped at him so viciously that he had it off in a second.
Jenny tied the improvised tourniquet above the wound, then pressed the bleeding puncture closed. Once the flow was slowed, she would use the sterile needle and sutures in her medical kit. A few stitches should take care of sealing the cut. The
worst was over when Gray Hawk arrived. The crowd parted in respect and fear. He thundered an order for the boy whose carelessness had caused the accident to return to his father's lodge until he was sent for, then knelt beside his daughter-in-law and inquired after the well-being of A'Kima. His dark, wise eyes observed the skill and tenderness with which she ministered to the little girl.
It grieved him to admit he'd been wrong, not because of his pride, but because he so obstinately had refused the help Jenny had offered, sure that no one with white skin was sincere in helping those whose skin was darker. "I will carry A'Kima to Saloma's lodge," he said now, but as he reached out to scoop the girl into his powerful arms, Jenny caught his arm.
"Wait, please." She loosened the tourniquet, then sighed with relief when she saw the bleeding had slowed to a trickle. "Carry her slowly, Gray Hawk," she warned, "and try not. to jostle the arm. She could start bleeding again." Then, with a glint of defiance in her eyes, she added, "I'm going to my lodge to get my medical supplies. The wound still needs to be sewn and cleaned to prevent infection." The look in her eyes dared him to refuse her further help, but there was no resistance in the dark eyes that looked back at her. Gray Hawk nodded, carefully lifting the girl and turning to lead the way up the hill.
Jenny closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath to quell the rapid beating of her heart. She had won a victory with the chief. After all these weeks of trying to convince him her help was needed, it had taken an emergency to make him see that she had something to offer. Her stomach ached with nervous excitement-the tension she'd felt until the bleeding had stopped. Jenny took in a sharp breath as a cramp hit her, held it for a moment then slowly exhaled. She wavered on her feet as she rose, her vision blurred by little flashes of silver.
