That was what Lauralee wanted.
A sweet loving!
“Lauralee, if I frighten you this much how can we continue together?” Dancing Cloud insisted, his fingers tightening on her shoulders. He leaned down into her face. “Do you want me to leave? Although I promised your father that I would be your escort, I cannot do this if you are frightened of me.”
Panic seized Lauralee. She could not bear to continue the journey without Dancing Cloud. She could hardly bear to see the hurt that she had inflicted on him because of her inability to interact with him as a normal person might do. She saw herself as less than normal because of her inability to place her past totally behind her.
She had learned to live with such a disability until she had met Dancing Cloud. In him she had seen all that she ever wanted in a man.
Her body spoke to her in unknown ways when she was in his presence. But these natural hungers frightened her.
Yet, she could not bear to send him away. Somehow she had to find a way to overcome her past, of her fears of being with a man sexually.
Without further thought she wrenched herself free of his clasping fingers and flung herself into his arms.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her body racked with sobs. “I don’t want you to go.”
“But, Lauralee, the way you behaved only moments ago,” Dancing Cloud said, his heart throbbing over her closeness and the way she clung so desperately to him. “What was I to think?”
“I never meant to hurt you,” Lauralee sobbed. “It just happened.”
“Then you are not frightened of me?”
“Not you. Just of my feelings.”
“Because I was nude?”
“Yes.”
“Is my body unpleasant to look at?”
Lauralee eased somewhat away from him. “No,” she murmured. She wiped tears from her eyes as she gazed up at him. She felt that same familiar melting sensation that came with being so near him.
And his eyes.
Oh, how they mesmerized her.
“Nothing about you is ugly,” she murmured. “Please believe me when I tell you that my behavior moments ago had nothing at all to do with you.”
Dancing Cloud’s lips quavered into a slow smile. “That is good to know,” he said, trying to make things more light-hearted between them. “I would not want to think that seeing my body caused such a reaction. The Cherokee men take much pride in their muscles and bronzed skin.”
Dancing Cloud decided not to question her further. It was obvious that something had triggered her reaction. If it was not because she found him loathsome, then it was something else. He would wait until she was ready to confide in him.
Lauralee laughed softly. “You have much to be proud of,” she said, blushing when she realized how that must have sounded.
“Thank you for the buffalo robe and for picking the grapes for breakfast,” she blurted, to change the subject. “And for building the fire. It helped to ward off the chill of the morning.”
“Will grapes be enough for you?” Dancing Cloud asked as she swung away from him to walk beside him toward the campsite. “I felt that something lighter might be best since we have a long trip today in the hot sun.”
“Thank goodness I purchased a covered buggy for my comfort,” Lauralee said, smiling up at him. “And, yes, grapes will be fine until we stop for lunch. Then for supper I will show you what the cooks at the orphanage prepared for our long trip. I was too tired last night to spread a fancy cloth for our meal. Tonight, however, I shall not spread only a checkered cloth on the ground, but place many surprises upon it for you.”
So relieved to see that Lauralee was behaving her normal self again, Dancing Cloud placed his arm around her waist and swung her to face him. He saw no fear in her eyes as she gazed up at him. Instead he saw a need that matched his own. He drew her close.
“Lauralee,” he whispered as he lowered his lips to hers, glad that she allowed it.
He did not imagine her arms twining around his neck and the way she returned his kiss so willingly and sweetly.
He did not imagine the feelings that were soaring through him like a raging fire.
He did not imagine it when she just as quickly wrenched herself free and stared up at him again with wild, frightened eyes, then stormed away from him and stood beside her buggy, clutching the seat, her back to him.
Stunned by her sudden mood changes, Dancing Cloud looked at her, his lips parted. He knew that she enjoyed being kissed! Why then did she run away from him as though he were a rogue? A kiss was all that he had wanted from her. Nothing more. If it were more than that, then he could understand why she might be afraid, or feel incensed by his boldness.
He hung his head and shook it slowly, then knelt down beside the fire and stared into the flames. He now realized that he was in love with a complex, troubled woman. It was evident that she had been scarred from some experience in her past, but would she ever be able to overcome it? he wondered. Somehow he had to find a way to help her forget.
Lauralee was keenly aware of having once more inflicted hurt on the man she loved, yet she felt helpless in being able to stop herself. It was as though an alarm went off inside her brain, an alarm that warned her not to let a man get this close to her vulnerable self.
Yet her insides tremored sensually as she recalled the power of his kiss, the power it had over her. If any man could make her forget, it was Dancing Cloud.
She turned and slowly walked toward Dancing Cloud. When she reached him she knelt down beside him. “Again I apologize,” she murmured.
When he turned his eyes to her, she became swallowed whole by the intensity of his gaze. She moved limply into his arms.
“Please kiss me again,” she whispered against his lips. “I promise you that I shall not run from you this time.”
Fearing a reenactment of what had just happened moments ago, Dancing Cloud hesitated.
But with her lips so soft and trembling against his, he could not deny her anything.
He swept her gently into his arms and kissed her softly, then eased her away from him.
As their eyes held, the feelings were there, like liquid, warm light, between them. Dancing Cloud wanted to take her into his arms and carry her to his bed of blankets and prove to her that she had no reason to fear him and that what he had for her was something special and pure.
But that would have to come later, after her full trust was gained again.
“Shall we have breakfast?” Dancing Cloud asked, taking her hand and walking her toward the bowl of grapes. “Swimming always makes me hungry.”
“I hope I haven’t spoiled the morning for you,” Lauralee said, giving him a quick, apologetic glance.
He turned heavy eyes down at her. “You could never ruin anything for me,” he said thickly. “Do you not know that I love you and would protect you with my life?”
Lauralee’s eyes widened and her pulse raced. He had just confessed to loving her. She felt the same way about him but just couldn’t find the words.
Yet, she knew that he wouldn’t believe her even if she did reveal her true feelings for him. Not after her behavior toward him this morning. To love someone as totally as she loved Dancing Cloud, she had to find a way to prove it, without becoming frightened by her feelings.
And she would.
For now, she just smiled sweetly up at him.
When they sat down on the blanket near the fire and he fed her that first grape, she looked adoringly into his eyes, wondering what tonight might bring.
Could she fight off the tormenting memory of the blue-eyed, red-haired Yankee and allow herself to love this wonderful man without reservations? Or would that hideous creature always be there, raping her, instead of her mother?
“I wonder what the city of Mattoon is like?” she said quickly, to stop her torturous thoughts.
“Nothing like the Great Smoky Mountains where I make my residence,” Dancing Cloud said, picking up another grape. He looked inten
sely into her eyes. “I would much rather be taking you there, instead of Mattoon. I have for so long been looking for that special woman to bring laughter into my lodge.”
“How can you want me as that woman?” Lauralee asked softly, casting her eyes downward. “Too often you have seen my tears instead of laughter.”
Dancing Cloud placed a finger beneath her chin and lifted her eyes to his. “I will do everything within my power to make that change,” he said thickly. “One day I hope you will never have cause to cry again. Your face is like the sunshine when you laugh. It fills my very soul with its warmth.”
Moved deeply by his words, and the sincerity in which they were spoken, Lauralee felt closer to him now than she would have ever thought possible. She so badly wanted to move into his arms and kiss him.
But she feared disappointing him again. If that damnable Yankee appeared in her mind’s eye again and she behaved like a crazy fool, Dancing Cloud might soon take back his wonderful loving words, thinking that she was too undeserving of them.
“Perhaps I will go with you to your beautiful mountain some day,” she said, instead. “But for now I must make things right in my life in Mattoon.”
He nodded, yet doubted that she could ever make things right in her life while living among the white people. Thus far her life bordered on tragedy. He blamed the white community for this. He felt that the only place that she could possibly find peace was among his people. For however long it took, he would see that she became as one with his people, as his wife.
He would erase all fears from her life and her heart.
And she would allow it.
He would not take no for an answer.
Chapter 7
Will, when speaking well can’t win her,
Saying nothing do?
Pr’y thee, why so mute?
—JOHN SUCKLING
The day had passed uneventfully along the trail. Night had come with its black umbrella sky, sequins of stars sparkling like small fires in the heavens.
The campfire built, and their private rituals seen to, Lauralee lifted a picnic basket from the back of her buggy.
Dancing Cloud became comfortable as he reclined on a blanket beside the campfire, one long leg stretched out before him. With a quiet wonder he watched Lauralee spread a checkered cloth on the ground, then placed sparkling china, as well as fancy cloth napkins and silverware on the cloth, all of which she had purchased with her inheritance.
Lauralee was being particular with how she prepared the cloth for the picnic. She had read many novels during her teen years, in which she had discovered ways to make a picnic pleasant, especially if one wanted to please a man.
While she purchased these special things for her picnic with Dancing Cloud she had not allowed her troubled thoughts to get in the way of how she wished it could be between herself and the handsome Cherokee.
She had recently discovered, however, that it was easy to fantasize.
It was another matter to actually live it.
Now with Dancing Cloud so close, watching her, she wondered if she should have not gone this far to make this picnic so alluring. With the delicious cheeses, breads, and fruits that the cooks at the orphanage had placed in her basket, and with the bottle of wine that she had purchased for this occasion, she knew that she had created an atmosphere for lovers.
“You call this that we are going to share a picnic?” Dancing Cloud said, unfamiliar with the word, or the ritual.
“Yes, a picnic,” Lauralee said, smiling shyly over at him as she sat down opposite him. She scooted a plate in front of him, and also a napkin and silverware.
She hesitated placing a tall-stemmed wineglass beside his plate, thinking that might be going just a mite too far.
She even doubted that he drank alcoholic beverages. She had heard that most Indians turned their eyes away from such drinks, except for those whose disappointments in life led them into drinking.
“If you’d rather not have this picnic, I’d understand,” Lauralee then blurted out, clasping her hands together on her lap. “It is a bit presumptuous of me to think that you’d want to sit with me like this with such fanciness.”
“After you have gone to such trouble?” Dancing Cloud said, reaching to the center of the cloth to get some cheese and bread. “I would not think to turn my back to this which you offer me.”
“Then you do like it?” Lauralee asked, her eyes brightening. “You don’t think I’m being childish?”
“I find you, and everything you do, anything but childish,” Dancing Cloud replied, his dark eyes imploring her as their eyes locked and held.
Instead of placing the food that he had chosen on his own plate, he reached over and placed it on Lauralee’s. He also placed several slices of apple on her plate, then took it upon himself to remove the cork from the wine bottle and poured her a glass.
Smiling, feeling a sweet bliss flowing through her veins, Lauralee, in turn, readied his plate with food. She took the bottle of wine and poured him a glass.
They ate in silence, their eyes smiling into each other’s. Dancing Cloud had developed a fondness for wine while in Boyd’s company, yet he drank it sparingly because it could quickly send his head into a crazy spinning.
But tonight the wine was not the cause for him to feel giddy. The air was charged with feelings being exchanged between himself and Lauralee, and he felt that just perhaps she was getting beyond her fears of being close to him.
Still, he would not chance upsetting her again. Tonight was a perfect time for them to become more acquainted in a less sensual way. After all, they did not know that much about each other.
Through the years, when Boyd had talked about Lauralee, Dancing Cloud had grown to know her as only a small child.
This adult Lauralee was something much more than Boyd’s remembrances of the child Lauralee, or of his descriptions of her.
Lauralee, as an adult, was someone fascinating, beautiful, and wonderfully gentle.
She was everything Dancing Cloud wanted in a wife—except for that dark side of her that he had yet to penetrate, and perhaps never would.
This was why he must go slowly with her. Just perhaps that side of her that she kept hidden might open up to him like the bud of a flower unfolds itself to the warming rays of the sun, and at the same time relieve herself of her burden.
“Lauralee, tell me about yourself, why you chose to enter the nursing profession,” he said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.
“For many reasons,” Lauralee said, taking a sip of wine as she gazed into the fire. “I wanted to find a way to help the unfortunate. The hospital was on the grounds of the orphanage. That gave me the opportunity to work after school, and on weekends.”
She looked over at him. “I never actually went to nursing school and became a registered nurse,” she murmured. “That was in my plans but I just never got around to it. I knew enough about nursing to be able to help out at the hospital. I was content with what I knew, and seemed to be able to use my skills well enough to get me by. The important thing was that I was helping someone. I needed that—to feel that I was worth something. That I was not just a forgotten person.”
“Your father never forgot you,” Dancing Cloud quickly corrected. “I traveled with him many times while he searched for you. He thought that someone had taken you in, to raise as their own. He did not ever mention an orphanage. I believe perhaps because he did not ever want to think of you as an orphan. The word ‘orphan’ means ‘a child deprived.’ He never wanted to think of you as deprived, or alone without family.”
“And I was both,” Lauralee said, her voice breaking. “It will be wonderful to be a part of a family again. The Petersons in Mattoon are generous to offer me this opportunity.”
“I also offer you this opportunity,” Dancing Cloud blurted out before he could stop himself. “You could be my wife. We could be a family.”
Lauralee’s eyes wavered. She looked away from him. She had
intense feelings for him. Yet until she knew that she could perform duties of a wife, in which intimacy was shared between a man and a woman, she would not torture herself into even considering marrying Dancing Cloud.
“That would not be the same,” she said, her heart sinking as she spoke the words that she did not mean. She wanted him with all of her heart and soul.
Yet not only did she fear that intimate side of a relationship, she felt that she must follow through with her promise to her father, as well as fulfill that promise to the Petersons.
They had been without a child forever.
She was going to fill that space in their lives left there from being childless.
Dancing Cloud’s insides stiffened. He had never asked a woman to marry him. And now that he had the same as said the words to Lauralee and she had turned him down, it was as though a part of his heart had been cut away.
Yet he could not allow her to see disappointment, nor his wounded pride.
And he would not give up on her all that easily, either. When she placed the demons of her past behind her he would be there to lead her into a wonderful future of happiness.
“Tell me about yourself, Dancing Cloud,” Lauralee quickly interjected, to change the subject back to something less personal, and hurtful. “I have always been fascinated by Indian culture.”
Dancing Cloud bit off a piece of cheese and washed it down with wine. He then shoved the wineglass and dish away and again relaxed on the blanket. As he talked he watched the fire-thrown shadows dance across Lauralee’s lovely face, wanting her no less now than before she had rejected his marriage proposal.
“My people are woodland people,” he said quickly, glad to enter into small talk with her. The more serious would have to wait again until another time. “We lead the hunter’s life and have always followed the path of peace. The Cherokee were never lawless savages as most have said.”
He paused, leaned over and shoved another log into the fire. “Long ago a solid silver pipe from George Washington was placed on the council table of the Cherokee,” he said thickly. “The same hand of Thomas Jefferson that wrote the Declaration of Independence also helped the Cherokee draft their early laws. The Cherokee takes pride in the knowledge that they are a people of respect and of law who understand when and how to use the respect in a lawful process.”
Wild Abandon Page 7
