Wild Embrace

by Cassie Edwards

  Everything was quiet, except for snores from the cells on either side. This made Strong Heart breathe easier, knowing that while everyone slept, his woman was safe from abuse.

  Peering through the darkness, Strong Heart checked the cells, determining who was housed in them. His pulse raced.

  The moon was shining on long and drifting red hair that hung over the side of the bunk in the first cell. Strong Heart recognized the exquisite creamy skin of Elizabeth’s face as she lay asleep on her side, her dark brush of lashes on her cheeks.

  Strong Heart was for the moment too overcome to move. Such a sight as this sent his heart into a tailspin of love for his la-daila. How could he ever live without her?

  His gaze lingered on her lips, remembering how passionately moist they could become as he kissed her.

  Then he lowered his gaze to where the tantalizing cleavage of her breasts could be seen where her dress dipped low. Her translucent body seemed to gleam in the moonlight.

  He wanted to take her in his arms and press her against him and challenge anyone who might try to separate them.

  Four Winds had stopped beside Strong Heart. He saw Elizabeth in the cell, then turned his eyes back to Strong Heart. He placed a hand on Strong Heart’s shoulder. “We must hy-ak, hurry,” he whispered. “The sheriff might come and check on things.”

  “Ah-hah,” Strong Heart whispered back, shaken from his reverie. He realized how foolish it had been to allow his thoughts to interfere with his need to move quickly to get Elizabeth safely from this prison.

  Four Winds went to the cell and slipped the key into the lock. The click of the tumblers echoed all around them, awakening not only Elizabeth, but some others.

  Elizabeth sat up with a start, her eyes wide. She gazed in terror toward the open cell door. Then she gasped with surprise as she saw Strong Heart rush into the cell toward her.

  “Strong Heart?” she said, tears spilling from her eyes as he gathered her into his arms and began carrying her from the cell. She looped an arm around his neck and clung to him. “I should’ve known that you would find out and would come for me.”

  When Four Winds moved past her and Strong Heart, toward the door that led to the office, her eyes widened. “And Four Winds is here also?” she asked, looking questioningly into Strong Heart’s eyes. They stepped into the office, the shouts and cries of the other prisoners a loud rumble behind them.

  She then paled as she looked down at the deputy with blood streaming from a gash at the back of his head. Strong Heart hurried toward the door that led outside. “Is he dead?” she asked, her voice hushed. “Did you have to kill him to set me free?”

  “He is only slightly injured,” Strong Heart said, heading outside toward the cover of the forest.

  Elizabeth held on to Strong Heart as he carried her away from the awful prison. She pressed her cheek against his chest, then looked quickly over his shoulder. The wails of the women who had been left behind sent shivers up her spine.

  “Those poor women,” she cried, reaching a hand out toward the prison. “We must go back. We must set them free! You don’t know how so many of them are forced to live! I was left alone. I was one of the lucky ones!”

  “There is no time,” Strong Heart said, running up to his horse and quickly placing her in the saddle.

  He jumped before her into the saddle, then looked over at Four Winds who was astride his horse. “Four Winds, would you say that the town is deserted enough for us to make our escape through it?” Strong Heart asked, his horse pawing at the ground nervously. “Climbing the steep butte will slow our escape. I feel that it would be much faster to ride through the city and lose ourselves in that stretch of forest that is not so hilly.”

  “Ah-hah, I feel that you are right,” Four Winds said. “And for the comfort of the woman, I think that escape is best.”

  Strong Heart nodded, then flicked his rawhide reins and sank his moccasined heels into the flanks of the roan, sending it out into the open, and down the steep grade of street beside Four Winds’s horse.

  When they reached First Avenue, they slowed their pace, not wanting to draw undue attention from those who still lingered along the boardwalks and those who swayed drunkenly outside the saloons.

  Elizabeth clung to Strong Heart’s waist, fearing capture. Then her attention was drawn to someone besides the loitering drunks. She drew in a breath when she recognized a young lady walking out of a saloon, steering a man who teetered alongside her.

  “Maysie!” Elizabeth gasped, stunned to see how gaudily Maysie was dressed, and how thickly painted her cheeks were with rouge. The bright red dress that Maysie was wearing was cut short above her knees, with layers upon layers of lacy petticoats beneath it that bounced as she walked. The bodice was cut low, revealing all but the nipples of her breasts. Her hair was tied up in a loose chignon, with a few curls of hair that coiled down on each side above her ears.

  Elizabeth’s heart sank at the sight. It saddened her to see that Maysie had gone back to whoring. Yet she was at least relieved to know that Maysie was alive, if one could call that sort of life living.

  Then Elizabeth’s attention was caught when she heard Four Winds gasp as he saw Maysie being escorted from the saloon. She could hear him utter something under his breath as his eyes became filled with hurt, and she had to wonder what Maysie was to him.

  Had they met in the brothel? Had he bought time with Maysie, and then fallen in love with her?

  She dispelled these thoughts as she remembered the urgent matter of their escape. Strong Heart headed toward the forest, away from the direction of her house.

  “You aren’t returning me home to my father?” she asked, then realized how foolish the question was before he even answered her. If she returned home, the sheriff would come and get her again as soon as he knew about the escape. She had to hide from the sheriff. She was now a fugitive, along with Strong Heart and Four Winds.

  She knew that a speedy escape now was of the essence, not only for herself, but for the man that she loved. He had risked his life again for her.

  Oh, but how could she ever truly repay him? How?

  Strong Heart looked over his shoulder at her. “You are going to my village again, and this time not as my prisoner, but as my beloved! I was foolish to leave you behind. This I will never allow again! You will be at my side at all times—even during those times I am called away to serve as speaker for my people. My la-daila, you will never be in danger again. Never!”

  Tears streamed down Elizabeth’s face and her eyes gratefully shone at Strong Heart.

  Then as Strong Heart turned away from her, she hugged her arms more tightly around his waist, locking her to him. She pressed her cheek against his back, knowing that words were easy—but not always so easily kept.

  Although Strong Heart was with her, that did not mean that she was safe. Should the sheriff form another posse and set out on a search for them, could they escape forever?

  She closed her eyes tightly, trying to block out such fears.

  At this moment she was safe, and she would revel in it. And she was with her beloved again!

  Chapter 23

  Ah! What is love?

  It is a pretty thing.

  —ROBERT GREENE

  The sun was just rising in a great splash of orange. The birds were waking in the trees overhead. Fish were fastened in strips to willow poles stuck in the ground near the campfire. The delicious aroma of the juices as they dripped into the flames, tantalized her as it filled the air. A spring, its bubbly water sweet and pure, flowed nearby.

  Elizabeth was weary from the long ride from Seattle, and was feeling as if history was repeating itself as she sat beside the campfire, listening to Strong Heart and Four Winds discussing Four Winds’s association with the outlaws.

  When the words got heated, she looked guardedly from one to the other.

  “Four Winds, when I set you free from prison, it was my sincere belief that you were not linked with the outlaw
s in any way,” Strong Heart said, his jaw tight. “And now I discover that you are. Do you not see how foolish this makes me appear?”

  Four Winds glowered at Strong Heart. “Had you known I was guilty of choosing my own way of life—the life of a renegade—you would have let me, your childhood companion, hang,” he said dryly. “You would condemn me to death?”

  “In my heart I would not want to,” Strong Heart grumbled. “But, ah-hah, yes, I would have no choice but to allow the noose to be slipped over your head. What you stand for does not show a Suquamish brave well in the eyes of all who see you. As a renegade, you do not set a good example, Four Winds, for the children of your village or mine. Tell me, Four Winds, why did you choose this road that you have followed?”

  Four Winds hesitated. He took a willow pole with its skewered meat from the ground and handed it to Elizabeth. He did the same for Strong Heart, then took some for himself. Yet he only stared at it, instead of eating.

  “At first I thought what I was doing was best for our people as a whole,” he mumbled. He looked slowly up at Strong Heart, who also was not eating. “I saw the onslaught of white settlers as a threat to our existence. I rode with the desperadoes only to frighten the whites from our land.” He lowered his eyes again, then said softly, “After a while what I was doing was more for excitement than for our people. In a sense, I was free again, with no white authority dictating to me how I should live.”

  His jaw tightened. “It is good to be free,” he said forcefully.

  “Do you not see that Strong Heart is even more free than you?” Strong Heart said, placing a hand on Four Winds’s shoulder. “You became the hunted the moment you raided and killed that first white settler.”

  “You are now the hunted, also, my friend,” Four Winds said, swallowing hard. He clapped his free hand onto Strong Heart’s shoulder. “And it is because of me that you are. It would have been best had you allowed me to die, Strong Heart. It would have been best for all concerned.”

  Strong Heart turned his eyes to Elizabeth and gave her a lingering look. He knew that she would have been better off had she not become involved in these escapes, yet if she had not, they would have never known the wonders of the love they felt for each other.

  And theirs was a special love—enduring to the end of time! For this, he turned grateful eyes to Four Winds and could not find it within his heart to totally condemn him.

  “It is never too late for you to turn your back on this wrong life that you have chosen,” Strong Heart said, dropping his hand from Four Winds’s shoulder. Four Winds lifted his away.

  “That is not what I wish to do,” Four Winds said, his eyes holding steady with Strong Heart’s. “It is still the life that I want. Do not fight me over it. I have my life. You have yours.”

  There was a strained silence between them. Four Winds turned his eyes away and began pulling meat from his stick with his teeth, slowly chewing it as he stared into the flames of the fire.

  Elizabeth waited breathlessly for Strong Heart’s next move, then relaxed when he also began to eat. Not taking her eyes off the two Suquamish braves, she also began eating, hardly tasting the food. The tension between Four Winds and Strong Heart seemed wound so tight it might snap at any moment.

  Then Strong Heart spoke abruptly, breaking the silence with his forceful voice.

  “Four Winds, I urge you to reconsider this choice that you have made,” he said, laying his stick and half-eaten food aside. “It is time for you to choose sides—to live still as a renegade, or the life of a Suquamish brave who shares each and every breath and deed with his people.”

  “You ask the impossible of Four Winds,” Four Winds grumbled. “I cannot do this thing you ask. I have already deceived my friends last night. I cannot do anything else against them.”

  Elizabeth’s mind was spinning with questions about many things. How had Four Winds known about her? Why had he cared? Why would he help release her if he was aligned with outlaws?

  He had been motivated by friendship—friendship with Strong Heart.

  But this was not answer enough for her. She would ply Strong Heart with many questions once they were alone.

  “You are too hasty in your response tonight,” Strong Heart said. “Because of what we were to each other as children, I will wait for you to think this through, this that I ask of you. Such a friendship as yours and mine cannot so quickly be cast aside, like something trivial and worthless. Ah-hah, I will await your response another day.”

  “Kloshe, good,” Four Winds said, nodding, relief showing in his face. “Ah-hah, that is good.”

  “Four Winds, you said that you had nothing to do with the raid on my people, and I believe you. But I must ask you again if you think those of your outlaw band are responsible?” Strong Heart said, lifting up his stick and biting pieces of fish from it.

  Four Winds took a bite of his own fish, then laid it aside as he looked at Strong Heart. “If I knew the answer, I would tell you,” he said. “As I have told you, I did not return to my outlaw friends immediately after my departure from you the night of the escape. I went to the hills for two nights and two days. When I returned, they were also in hiding, and nothing at all was said about any raid on your people.”

  Strong Heart frowned as he thrust his stick into the flames of the fire and watched it catch fire and burn. “Of course, they would not mention it in front of you,” he said in a low grumble. “You are Suquamish. They would expect you to still have some loyalty to our tribe. They would not want to give you cause to go against them, especially after hearing that it was your Suquamish friend who set you free.”

  “Perhaps so,” Four Winds said, nodding. “But as far as I know, my friends are innocent of the crime.”

  Strong Heart turned his gaze to Elizabeth, now recalling that Four Winds had told him that her father was a friend to Morris Murdoch, the leader of the outlaw gang. His eyes narrowed, thinking about the two white men who had come to his village with proposals.

  One was Elizabeth’s father. The other was Morris Murdoch.

  And now that he knew that Morris Murdoch was the leader, he suspected even more strongly that Elizabeth’s father and this Morris Murdoch had played a role in the raid on his village. Either Four Winds was lying, or was innocent of knowledge.

  But he would not mention this to Elizabeth just yet. She had been through enough without having to worry about her father’s association with outlaws.

  Ah-hah, yes, for now all that was truly important to him was that his woman was with him again and his people were readying themselves for the salmon run. Everything else would come later.

  And it would come. Everything had an end—even the lives of those who were responsible for the massacre in his village.

  “It is time that I part from you again, my friend,” Four Winds said, pushing himself up from the ground. “Let nothing cause our friendship to end. To me, it is most valuable.”

  Strong Heart rose to his feet and went with Four Winds to the grazing horses. When Four Winds turned to him, Strong Heart hesitated, then flung his arms around Four Winds and gave him a tight hug.

  “I will await word of your choice in life,” Strong Heart said huskily. Then he stepped away from Four Winds and watched him climb into his saddle and ride away.

  Strong Heart returned to the campsite and sat down beside Elizabeth. For a moment he stared gloomily into the fire, so many things troubling him.

  Then he turned to Elizabeth and took her face in his hands, and gently drew her nearer.

  “I can depend on you to always remain true to my heart?” he asked softly, his eyes searching hers for the answer that he sought.

  “Ah-hah,” Elizabeth said. Her using the Suquamish word pleased Strong Heart. His smile broadened, causing Elizabeth’s insides to begin a slow, sensual melting.

  “Forever and always,” she added softly, fastening her arms around his neck, urging his lips to hers.

  As he kissed her, his fingers crushed h
er hair and his body pressed hers to the ground.

  The kiss continued and his hands busied themselves with undressing her. Then he drew apart from her long enough to remove his own clothes. He knelt over her, the golden flames of the fire reflected on his body giving it a coppery sheen.

  Elizabeth caught her breath when Strong Heart stretched out above her, bracing himself with his arms, his hands laced with hers, and holding them slightly above her.

  With a knee he parted her legs and soon she felt the wonders of his manhood pressing gently into her soft folds.

  Elizabeth wrapped her legs around him, her hips responding to his touch as she raised her pelvis toward him.

  She drew in a breath of wild happiness as he entered her in one deep thrust.

  Elizabeth moved her body sinuously against his and drew him more deeply into the warmth of her body, only half aware of her whimpers.

  Then a rush of pure bliss flooded her senses and his body jerked and spasmed into hers. She again knew the true meaning of his wild embrace.

  * * *

  Sheriff Nolan walked listlessly into his office, his jaw puffed out with a fresh wad of tobacco. Then he almost choked on it when he discovered Deputy Bradley dead on the floor, a knife protruding from his back. Then his own body jumped when someone stepped up from behind him and knocked him unconscious with the butt of a pistol.

  A bandanna hiding his face, Morris Murdoch slipped his heavy pistol back inside its holster and hurried to the door and looked toward the forest. He motioned with a wave of his hand for the other outlaws to make a rush on the prison. He grabbed the keys and went to the back room to set Elizabeth free. Then he stopped in surprise. She wasn’t there.

  He stormed down the long corridor of cells. “Where is she?” he shouted, looking from prisoner to prisoner. “Who took her?”

  “Let us out of this hellhole!” was the response from several prisoners who spoke almost in unison. “Who cares what happened to that woman? Set us free, damn it!”