He knew now why she had to leave and why he could not ask her to stay. More than anything, she wanted to find her family, and as much as he wished she would turn her back on them and stay, he knew she could not. From the very first he knew that she would never be his to keep, but he did not know the depths of why until she finished her story last night.
Now he not only had to give her up, but he would have to live with the lingering pain of emotions he never wanted to feel, live knowing what it was to need a woman. Wondering what woman could ever compare to Olivia?
He had sat up all night, staring out at the swamp, trying to understand as he recalled every detail. After her nightmare, Olivia had seemed confused and disoriented. She told him that she had needed him, needed the feeling of peace and security he gave her. She said she had used him in an effort to forget Darcy Lankanal, the man who had imprisoned her in his whorehouse.
“Oh, Noah. I’m so sorry.”
He could not get the taste or the scent of her out of his mind. If he lived to be one hundred he would never forget last night or Olivia.
Yes, he had known from the first that she was not his to keep, but when he went to her and took her in his arms, when she kissed him, put her hands on him and urged him on, he had lost all of his resolve. There was no turning back. He had not thought beyond the moment or his need. Somewhere in the back of his mind, in the farthest corner of his heart, he had assumed that after they made love, she would want to stay with him forever.
He had been a naive, simpleminded fool.
With the memory of what they had done haunting him, he knew that if he was forced to spend another night here with her and not have her again, he would surely go insane.
Inside the cabin, she finally stirred. He heard her feet when they hit the floor, knew she was walking to the hearth to warm her bare toes. She had convinced him that he need only take her to the edge of the swamp and point her on her way.
His pack was ready. It lay on the porch near the opening to the steps and his rifle. He found what he was looking for and then walked into the cabin. When she saw him there in the doorway she blushed and looked down at her hands.
“There’s some hoecake if you’re hungry.” He spoke without looking at her and walked over to the table. She did not answer, so he took her lack of response as a refusal. He could not eat a crumb.
He slammed around, started tasks, forgot why he had begun and left them, started others, noticed that his hands were not steady. He walked away from the table. Coffee went unmade, the hoecake uneaten. Even without looking in her direction, he could tell Olivia had not moved a step.
He had taken refuge in the swamp in part because solitude was what he knew, but also because here no one would stare at his scars. Here he would never be reminded of the world he had left behind or of its mysteries. He would never have to face all the things he barely understood: towns and settlements, homes and hearths, obligations and families. After his accident, he never dreamed that one day he would take pleasure in a woman’s body. Now that he had, how was he to keep the memories from rushing back again and again?
“Noah?”
Not expecting her to be standing close, he spun around and nearly collided with Olivia. Her deep green eyes were ravaged with shadows. There were dark smudges beneath them. Sleep had eluded her the way it had him.
“What?”
She flinched slightly at his harsh tone, so he softened it and repeated, “What?”
He could not stop a surge of anger as he looked into her upturned face. It would be a long time before he could forgive her for what she had done, for what she had given him and then taken away.
“Where is my other dress?”
“Your dress?”
“The dress I had on when I got here. If you will give it back, I’ll change and we can leave.” She pressed her lips together, worried with her hands, did everything but look directly at him.
“I burned it.”
Quickly, her eyes touched his face again. “You did what?”
“It was a rag.” Rough and raveled. Not worthy of her flawless skin.
“It was all I had,” she whispered.
“You have another now.”
“I can’t take this one.”
“Because it is not good enough?” It was made in the style of his mother’s people. She had fashioned it with her own hands.
“Because it is too fine.”
“Take it. And the shawl. Or would you go back to your people naked?”
He could see that the question hurt her, even though he had not meant it to. He picked up the bundle he had carried in, thrust it at her.
“What is this?”
He watched her unfold the packet wrapped in a cornmeal sack until its contents were revealed. Inside lay a pair of moccasins made out of one of his finest pieces of tanned leather. He had decorated them the way his mother taught him. Beading was woman’s work, he knew that, but the skill helped fill the long, empty hours.
She held the shoes close, tracing the starburst pattern with her fingertip. He wished she would look up again so that he might look into her eyes, see his scarred reflection there and remember why he had to let her go.
“These are beautiful.”
“Put them on and then we will leave.”
Part of him wanted her to linger over them, to prolong the inevitable, but she went directly to a stool, sat down and slipped one on. He saw it was nearly a perfect fit and turned away so that when she lifted the hem of the dress to put on the other, he would not glimpse her ankles again.
There was nothing to argue, no pretty speech to make that might persuade her to stay. What had happened between them last night was a mistake. She had told him so. Certainly once was not enough to keep them together. He knew that now.
Wordless, Noah walked outside and waited. She joined him shortly and he went first down the steps nailed into the tree trunk. At the base of the giant tree he waited in the pirogue, balancing the shallow craft so that it would not tip over. Morning had broken, bringing the swamp to life.
The fringed hem of the dress swayed around her ankles as she hung on the last step and searched for a foothold with her toes. Finally, tentative and hesitant, she waited for him to help.
“Slowly put one foot in and keep your hands on the step until you are steady,” he advised.
Looking wide-eyed and scared, she took a seat in front of him. Noah pushed off and they drifted over the deceptively still surface of the water. Beneath the duckweed, several feet below the surface, a current carried life-sustaining fresh water through the swamp.
Neither of them spoke as he wove the craft between the trees, ever north and east. Where no path seemed to exist, he read the bark on the trees, watched the direction of the breeze on the shimmering surfaces of the leaves. He wished things between them were different, that he could tell her of the things she was seeing, teach her about the swamp, but she was leaving. Why bother?
Olivia remained silent as they floated along, staring off into the distance. Unlike the day he had brought her to the house unconscious, she did not lean against him. Instead she held herself stiffly erect and did not allow herself to touch him at all. For the last time, he took in her hair, the brave set of her shoulders.
Finally they reached the edge of Heron Pond. Where the water met the land, a new settler had cleared a few acres in the fall. The sun-drenched, freshly plowed open space that stood ready for planting was a shock to look upon after months of the close confines of the swamp, where the sky was only visible in bits and pieces.
The open expanse left Noah feeling vulnerable. How many more acres of forest would fall to settlers’ axes? This was what his mother had foreseen in her visions, what the voices on the wind had warned of. The whites were coming. The first people, the native people of these lands, would fall like the trees of the forest before the newcomers finished clearing the land.
He pulled the canoe up to the shore, cradled his long rifle, and stepped out. Eve
n though it tore at his soul to have to touch her again, he reached for Olivia’s hand.
There was a moment of hesitation when she stared at his fingers and he thought that she might refuse his help, but then she slipped her hand into his and let him pull her to her feet.
At the touch of her flesh upon his, his heart started to pound. When she walked past him, she came so close to him that he had to close his eyes, take a deep breath and try to still his erratic heartbeat. She stood aside waiting while he dragged the canoe up onto dry land and began walking toward the treeline. Olivia hurried up behind him, dogging his heels.
At the edge of the clearing he stopped and pointed across the newly plowed field.
“If you cut directly across there and keep heading toward the rise, you will come to a cabin where you can ask directions to Shawneetown. Perhaps someone there will take you the rest of the way.”
She kept her eyes trained in that direction, then nodded, but did not look over at him.
“You should be fine. It’s still early. There is no one around for miles,” he said.
She nodded again.
“The sun is shining. You will be warm enough.” He felt like an idiot. He could not seem to stop talking.
He thought she was going to change her mind and tell him that she would stay when she suddenly took one step and then another and began to head across the field. Two yards away, she stopped and turned around. Her fingers worried a strand of her long, dark hair. He had to strain to hear her.
“Thank you, Noah. I owe you my life. I will never forget you. I only hope that someday you can forgive me for what I did last night. If you ever think of me, I hope it will be kindly.”
Before he could say anything, she turned around and was on her way, picking her steps carefully as she negotiated the plowed rows. He took a step in her direction, then another before a cold sweat broke out along his spine and he halted in his tracks. He walked over to the nearest tree and leaned back against it, the rifle in his arms forgotten as he watched her go.
Olivia did not look back, nor did it appear that she was going to. Instead she pressed on with a determined stride as she crossed the settler’s field alone. Noah had never met or spoken to the man who had claimed this land, but he had watched him from afar. One day last year when he was checking his traps, he had seen the man’s wife bring the farmer his noon meal. There had been children, too, running and frolicking around the trees.
By rights, Noah thought, shouldn’t a man with children be a kind man? A caring one? Then he remembered Stanley Marlborough, who had agreed to take Olivia up the Mississippi but then attacked her. A married man could be just as much a scoundrel as one who was not.
Olivia was farther away now, almost halfway across the clearing. Distance appeared to have made her shrink. Small and vulnerable, no longer was she a temptation confined within his four walls. No longer was she the young woman whose very scent aroused him. Out in the open, she was nothing more than a young, defenseless woman in his mother’s doeskin dress and silk shawl, crossing a field alone toward an unknown fate.
If he was not there to protect her from harm, anything could happen.
She was headed toward the one place he never thought to be again, the confusing world of white men, where owning land and goods, building more and bigger houses, and amassing possessions seemed to be an all-consuming pastime. Perhaps she knew how to navigate that world, but he did not. Nor did he care to learn.
He pushed away from the tree when he saw her stumble. She righted herself quickly and he let out a sigh of relief.
Olivia knew plenty about the world. That much had been apparent last night, but had she learned to judge a man? Was she still naive enough to be taken in by someone like Stanley Marlborough again? Was she strong enough, cunning enough to avoid men like Darcy Lankanal?
Unable to leave, he continued to watch her and could not believe it when he saw her slowly drift off course. He had told her to head toward the rise in the land. Couldn’t she see that it was more to the left than the right? Had she no sense of direction at all? Suddenly it came to him that he had found her in the first place because she had gotten lost. Without him, it looked like she was going to wander off course.
“Damn.” Noah pushed off the hickory tree. He hurried over to the pirogue and reached for his pack.
Chapter 7
He walked up behind her without a sound and scared her within an inch of her life.
“What are you doing?” With her feet planted wide on the plowed hunks of rich soil, Olivia frowned at Noah. Although she had found herself secretly wishing he were with her, she had no idea he had been walking behind her until she caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye.
“You’re going the wrong way,” he informed her coolly, looking off toward the horizon. “I told you to walk toward that rise.” He pointed far left of where she was headed.
Olivia squinted. From the edge of the swamp the gentle sweep of the land had been easy to see. From where she stood now, things looked entirely different.
“Well. Thank you.” She turned in the right direction. “Thank you very much.”
He did not head back to the swamp as she expected. Instead, he stood there looking decidedly uncomfortable, staring off in the direction of the homesteaders’ cabin. In the open sunlight, the thin, jagged red scar down the side of his face was more noticeable, but certainly not offensive. The leather eye patch gave him a rugged, daring appearance. His buckskin coat and pants, his red shirt, the rifle he handled so naturally—all of it only added to his mystique.
She was such a harlot that she had a sudden urge to reach out to him, to cup his cheek, to raise herself on tiptoe and kiss him. Her breasts ached. Her nipples throbbed, teased by memory alone. She cursed such thoughts, cursed her traitorous body, closed her eyes and forced herself to turn away.
“I’ll take you to Shawneetown,” he said, surprising her with the unsolicited offer.
To go out among people again, to show his scars—she knew what that would cost him, and she could not let him suffer any more on her account.
“I can get there on my own.”
He made a sound, somewhere between a snort and a laugh.
“I will,” she assured him.
“You lead the way. I’ll just go along to make sure.”
There was still no sign of any cabin from where they stood on the open land.
“Noah—”
“Start walking so we don’t drag this out any longer than we have to, all right?”
Unwilling to let him see her relief, Olivia stopped arguing and started walking. When he fell in beside her, the safe, secure feeling was back.
Twenty times—she knew because she counted—twenty times she had thought of starting up a conversation to keep the silence from growing more strained than it already was, but then she would stop herself. What could she say that had not already been said?
They reached the cabin, the log walls rough and obviously new, for they were barely weathered. Two dogs jumped up when they caught their scent and came running across the field barking, ears flapping. Olivia moved closer to Noah and realized it had already become instinctive to look to him for protection.
The matching pair of spotted brown-and-white setters proved to be harmless. They began running in circles and wagging their tails, jumping up and down. In the shadow of the overhanging roof of the cabin up ahead, Olivia noticed a woman framed in the open doorway. Wearing a covered by a threadbare apron, the homesteader awaited their arrival with a rifle aimed in their direction. Her light brown hair was pulled back in a severe style, her features set in a harsh scowl. Before they moved another yard closer, she hollered at them.
“You two get on, now, you hear? Jest keep moving. I don’t cotton to no Indians around here and I don’t give handouts to the likes of you.”
Without giving Noah a chance to comment, Olivia yelled back, “My name is Olivia Bond and I’m looking for my family in Shawneetown. I was wonde
ring if you might have heard of Payson Bond, or know where he might have settled?” She tried to keep her tone light and friendly, but it was hard with a shotgun pointed directly at her.
“Never heard of him.” The woman made no move to invite them closer.
Olivia whispered to Noah, “Do you think she is out here alone?”
“More than likely her man is off hunting.”
“What should we do?”
“We?”
Olivia put one hand up to shade her eyes. The woman gestured with the gun, waving it in indication that they should keep walking. “I said I don’t want none of your kind around here. Jest get a move on, now. Go on, get?”
Olivia took a step in the direction of the cabin. “I’ve a good mind to tell her a thing or two.”
Noah reached out, put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t waste your time.”
The resignation in his voice nearly broke her heart. If this was the type of reception he received everywhere he went, no wonder he wanted nothing to do with civilization. She looked down at the doeskin gown and moccasins and realized that with her long black hair she might be taken for an Indian, too. She wondered what kind of welcome they would get in Shawneetown.
Circumventing the cabin, they walked across the field, toward a wooded bluff. Soon they were out of sight of the cabin and standing on what appeared to be the head of a trail that started through the woods. After a sudden dark thought, Olivia turned to him. She didn’t know what straits she might be reduced to if they could not find her family at all.
Noah shifted the pack slung over his shoulder, his mouth set in a hard line. With his brows slammed together he looked as if he would rather be anywhere else in the world.
“I’m sorry I got you into this, Noah.”
His scar had made him so awkward around her that she hated to think of him having to face a town full of strangers or take more abuse from someone like the woman who had just run them off her land.
Blue Moon Page 9
